Bullied in Japan, pre-teen half-Pinay commits suicide

The father of a 12-year-old Japanese-Filipino girl said on Tuesday that his daughter's suicide may have been triggered by bullying at school, and that his wife's Filipino nationality may have been one reason for the bullying. In an interview with the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun posted on the newspaper’s website, Ryuji Uemura, 50, made this disclosure about the bullying of his daughter Akiko, who committed suicide in Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture, in Japan’s Honshu island. "I think the fact that her mother was a Filipino was also one of the causes of the bullying," he said. According to Uemura, when his daughter was in the fifth grade in 2009, her 41-year-old mother went to her school for class observation day for the first time. At the time, Akiko's classmates teased her about her mother's appearance, and after that she started to be bullied. The 12-year-old's memorial service was held at a funeral hall in Gunma Prefecture on Oct. 26, with about 90 people from her school and others in attendance. All 38 students in her class attended the funeral, complying with a request from the school. "We're very sad that she suddenly passed away. We hope she will rest in peace," a boy representing the students said in a speech at the ceremony, Mainichi reported. More Japanese-Filipino children born The massive migration of Filipino overseas workers to Japan since the 1980s, many of them working in the entertainment industry, produced an abrupt increase in the number of Japanese-Filipino families. In 2005, Japan restricted the issuance of entertainment visas in an effort to prevent Filipino women from falling victim to human-trafficking operations or being forced to work in the sex industry. The number of Filipino women on entertainment visas subsequently plummeted to 8,606 in 2006, about one-tenth of the peak number of 82,741 two years before. But the number again increased when the ban was eased a few years ago, following widespread protests by Filipina entertainers. The Japanese Embassy in Manila today reports that around 5,000 Japanese spouse visas are issued every year to Japan-bound Filipinas. An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Japanese-Filipino families now live in Japan, either as two-parent families or as single mother-headed families, according to the Center for Japanese-Filipino Families (CJFF), an NGO advocating for the rights of such families. The rapid growth in Japanese-Filipino families is a new phenomenon that puts pressure on Japan’s society, traditionally a closed one, the CJFF said. While there are growing efforts to integrate Japanese-Filipino families into the fabric of Japanese society and to build a multicultural society, Japanese-Filipino families — and especially the mothers and their Japanese-Filipino children (JFC) — are still subject to discrimination, the CJFF said. The CJFF is a group that seeks to “empower the members and the community of Japanese-Filipino families socially, economically, culturally and ecumenically to effectively participate in the mission of realizing a place to live were all are treated equally." Japanese-Filipino children in limbo Up until a landmark decision by Japan’s Supreme Court on June 4, 2008, which granted citizenship to children with Japanese fathers and foreign mothers who were not married, Japanese law did not recognize the Japanese nationality of such children, the Citizens' Network for Japanese-Filipino Children (CNJFC) said. Under old laws, the CNJFC said, bloodline determined the nationality under certain situations, and a child born to a foreign woman and Japanese man is granted Japanese nationality only if the parents are legally married. A child born outside of wedlock would not be granted Japanese nationality unless the father admitted paternity while the child was in the womb. Recognizing the child after birth was considered too late, the CNJFC said. "Without suffrage, Japanese-Filipino children felt alienated and faced discrimination in job-hunting activities," Rieko Ito, CNJFC general secretary said. High teenage suicides Teenage suicide is a growing problem in Japan, and the World Health Organization says that suicides in general have increased steadily from 19.6 per 100,000 in 1950 to 24.4 per 1,000 in 2007. In 2009, Japan's suicide total rose 2% to 32,845, equating to nearly 26 suicides per 100,000 people — a number that is significantly higher than for any other OECD country. In Japan, suicide is now the leading cause of death among men aged 20-44 and women aged 15-34. In comparison, the UK rate is about nine per 100,000, and the US rate around 11.—DM/JV/HS, GMANews.TV