A Japanese man yesterday was arrested for using a stun gun to discipline his three children, police said, the latest in a series of child-abuse cases that have prompted legislators to seek a ban on corporal punishment.
The 45-year-old man in the southern city of Kitakyushu told police that he used a stun gun on his two daughters, aged 17 and 13, and 11-year-old son “when they didn’t follow the rules,” a police official said.
The boy suffered a minor burn on his arm and there were no visible injuries on the girls, the official said.
A series of high-profile child-abuse cases has shaken Japan, including the death last year of a five-year-old girl, Yua Funato, whose father beat and starved her in the name of discipline.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the time that her death was “soul-crushing” and he promised steps to prevent more deaths.
Legislators in the powerful lower house of parliament on Tuesday unanimously approved a plan to ban corporal punishment of children by their parents, paving the way for the passage of a revised law during the current session of parliament.
More than 50 nations — mostly in Europe — have laws prohibiting corporal punishment of children in the home, which some researchers say is an ineffective form of discipline.
Japan would be the third nation in Asia to institute such a ban after Mongolia in 2016 and Nepal last year.
The child-abuse case is the latest incident involving children that has shocked Japan.
On Tuesday, a knife-wielding man slashed at a group of schoolgirls at a bus stop in Kawasaki, killing one girl and the father of another child.
Sixteen other children between the ages of six and 12 and a woman were wounded in the attack by a middle-aged man, who died later of a self-inflicted wound, broadcaster NHK said, citing police.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS