Japan struggles to combat bullying in schools

TOKYO, Nov 29 (Reuters) Kasumi Komori had been a cheerful 15-year-old, blessed with friendly classmates until April 1998 when she entered high school and joined a brass band club.

She quietly struggled to cope with persistent bullying by her peers in the band for more than three months, but in the end she hanged herself in the bathroom of her home.

''Kasumi was bullied and she had her mind deeply hurt and was cornered into death,'' her mother Midori recently told hundreds of school children near Tokyo.

Hoping to help combat the bullying rampant among Japanese school children, the 49-year-old mother has visited hundreds of schools across the country to give accounts of her daughter's tragedy, but her goodwill mission has yet to bear fruit.

Bullying can come in the form of physical abuse, cruel taunts such as ''Die!'', spreading vicious rumours or simply ignoring the victim.

Japan has recently been gripped by news of suicides by school children over bullying. About a dozen teenagers have taken their lives since since early September.

''Children are living in the hell of bullying,'' said Naoki Ogi, an education expert at Tokyo's Hosei University.

A survey of 6,400 students at public high schools, conducted by Kyoto University in September, showed 56 per cent of boys and 63 per cent of girls had been bullied when they were in elementary school.

When they were junior high school students, 52 per cent of boys and 54 per cent of girls polled said they had been bullied.

Japan's education system, which emphasises competition and academic achievements, is partly to blame as it puts children under incessant stress, while others said bullying was a form of scapegoating, Ogi said.

''Scapegoating unites a group,'' said Hideki Wada, a psychiatrist at the International University of Health and Welfare in Tokyo.

''That holds true everywhere. By attacking or ostracising one individual, other members of the group get psychological and mental stability.'' NO SOLUTION IN SIGHT Masako Kihara, an associate professor of ''socio-epidemiology'' at Kyoto University, warns that unless measures are taken now, there will be more victims of bullying in schools.

''When it comes to thinking of why bullying leads to suicides, I believe the nature of bullying is becoming all the more sinister,'' she said, adding that modern-day technology was playing a key role.

''We should teach children the danger of the Internet society imbued with anonymity and offensiveness,'' she said.

''Children bully someone by sending anonymous e-mail through mobile phones. They can easily bully someone without having the sense of guilt,'' Ogi said.

Other experts argue that bullying remains rampant in Japanese schools because teachers try to cover it up.

''It is not that schools with no bullying are good,'' Education Minister Bunmei Ibuki said recently. ''In order to make their schools look good, teachers tend to hide bullying and education boards tend not to report bullying.'' Hosei University's Ogi said Japan should adopt a policy of ''zero tolerance'' for bullying.

A government panel meeting today was expected to urge education authorities to take measures to reprimand children for bullying and punish teachers for neglecting it.

''The whole country must stand on the view that bullying is vicious and intolerable and infringes on human rights,'' Ogi said.

Many children worry that they could become targets of bullying in the future.

''It's difficult to draw a line between what is bullying and what is not,'' said Kana Adachi, a 14-year-old girl at a junior school near Tokyo. ''Because I am short, I have some worries about what will happen to me in the future.'' REUTERS REUTERS AKJ KP0935