Chronically high suicide rate moves Japan to act

If the Golden Gate Bridge had been built in Japan, there might be little discussion about erecting a barrier to keep people from jumping off.

Since 1998, an average of 30,000 Japanese people have committed suicide annually, according to the National Police Agency. In a nation of 128 million inhabitants, that's 24 per 100,000 people - the highest rate among developed nations. In contrast, the U.S. suicide rate is 11 per 100,000 (Lithuania currently has the world's highest with 38.6 per 100,000 people, according to the World Health Organization).

Most observers in Japan say a key reason for the rash of suicides has been financial problems, which began in earnest in the 1990s with an economic recession that caused high unemployment, lower incomes, mounting debt and bankruptcies. But even after the economy began to improve in 2002, suicides continued unabated with little government reaction, most critics say.

"This country has done nothing until recently to prevent suicide," said Yukio Saito, director of the 24-hour suicide hot line Inochi no Denwa, or Phone of Life, which he says receives an estimated 720,000 calls a year at 49 call stations across Japan.

Saito and other critics say the government traditionally treated suicide as a personal problem, one that didn't need state intervention or be discussed publicly. But pressure from suicide prevention groups finally spurred the Japanese parliament known as the Diet to pass prevention legislation in 2006 and issue a white paper outlining the problem in November.

The new law provides still unspecified support to families who have lost loved ones. But government actions do include training for medical doctors to better identify patients with mental problems and legal consultants for those mired in debt. Most important, the legislation created the Office for the Policy of Suicide Prevention inside the Cabinet office controlled by the prime minister. Last year, it launched the nation's first-ever suicide prevention week to educate the public about the signs of stress and depression that can lead to suicide.

The government white paper, meanwhile, found that many suicides are committed by middle-aged males at the beginning of the workweek during early morning hours. The most common method: hanging.

"We suspect that streamlining human resources and hiring freezes at companies that happened 10 years ago may have put those in their 30s and 40s who stayed at the companies in a difficult working environment," said Hioyuki Takahashi, director of the Office for the Policy of Suicide Prevention.

For the past decade, many Japanese companies have relied on temporary workers, who, unlike full-time employees, receive less salary and no benefits. Many companies also ignore labor laws by requiring employees to work overtime without extra pay, according to Yasuyuki Shimizu, who directs the Tokyo suicide prevention organization called Lifelink. In 2006, for example, a Japanese court ruled that overwork pushed a 28-year-old Fujitsu software developer to commit suicide in a company dormitory four years earlier after working 159 hours of overtime in one month.

Another contributing factor to rising suicides may be Japanese mores, says Takahashi of the government's suicide prevention office.

"In the Japanese culture, there is a positive view toward one taking their own life - to take responsibility," for their own actions, he said.

Jose Bertolote, the coordinator at the Management of Mental and Brain Disorders of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at the World Health Organization, said that Christianity's negative view of suicide may curb many potential suicides in Western countries. But in most Asian countries, he said, "people believe in reincarnation. So if people die, they will reincarnate, so dying is not so bad."

Meanwhile, the jisatsu-sa, or "person who commits suicide" clubs that captured international headlines in the past several years of mostly young people who committed suicide in groups, have largely ended thanks to the National Police Agency's Cybercrime Project. The task force cracked down on the Internet sites with help from the public.

Lifelink's Shimizu believes the government's recent steps to stem suicides are a good beginning. His organization is gathering information on 1,000 suicides by interviewing victims' families and working with local authorities. The group rated each prefecture on how well it has adopted the new suicide prevention measures and has alerted the press when guidelines are not being followed.

"We're trying very hard to make up for lost time," said Shimizu. "Japanese society has had to pay a high cost for not responding quickly."