Suicide has a long history in Japan as a way of avoiding shame or
dishonor, and its suicide rate has long topped the Group of Seven
nations, but a concerted national effort brought numbers down by
roughly 40 percent over 15 years that included ten straight years of
decline from 2009.
But, preliminary police data published on Friday showed suicides
totaled 20,919 last year, 750 more than in 2019.
The suicide rate had been trending lower in the first half of 2020,
but from July onward the numbers began to rise as the impact of the
coronavirus outbreak hit home, activists and researchers say.
By gender, 13,943 men and 6,976 women took their lives - a 1 percent
decline on the previous year for men but a 14.5 percent increase for
women, who tend to work in service and retail sectors that suffered
more job losses during the pandemic.
"The painful trend of rising suicides by women has continued," a
Health Ministry official told a news briefing.
"Suicides are the result of many different things, but I think one
thing we can definitely say is that there was an impact from the
coronavirus on economic and lifestyle factors," he added.
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The worst month was October,
when suicides totaled 2,153 for the highest
monthly total in over five years. The number of
suicides by women, at 851, rose 82.6 percent on
the same month in 2019.
For many years in Japan, getting psychological
help has been stigmatised, but when suicides hit
a peak of 34,427 in 2003, alarmed policymakers
drew up a comprehensive prevention programme
launched in 2007.
Through a combination of government and
corporate efforts that included identifying
at-risk groups, capping overtime and making it
easier to get counselling, suicides had
decreased to just over 20,000 in 2019, before
the coronavirus struck.
(Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Simon
Cameron-Moore)
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