Parents of bullied suicide girl sue for 20 mil. yen

The Yomiuri Shimbun
February 8, 2007
Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070208TDY03002.htm

The parents of a female middle school student who committed suicide after being bullied at her school in Kitamoto, Saitama Prefecture, have filed a lawsuit demanding a total of 20 million yen in compensation from the central and municipal governments.

The parents of Yumi Nakai, a 12-year-old second-year student at Kitamoto Middle School, allege that the Education, Science and Technology Ministry and the municipal board of education were responsible for her death as they failed to take proper measures to prevent bullying at the school.

The parents filed the lawsuit Tuesday at the Tokyo District Court, and, according to the parents' lawyers, it is the first lawsuit to question the responsibility of the central government over a suicide attributed to school bullying.

According to the plaintiffs' complaint, their daughter was taunted by her classmates with words such as "You're a pain!" and "Kill yourself!"--while at primary school, and continued to be bullied after starting middle school.

In October 2005, she jumped to her death from a condominium in Konosu, Saitama Prefecture.

The parents said they asked the Kitamoto municipal government to investigate the circumstances surrounding their daughter's death, but no such probe was ever conducted. They insist that teachers at the school failed to fulfill their duty to prevent bullying, and that the municipal government similarly failed in its duty to properly investigate and report the death.

The parents also want the central government to shoulder some of the blame, claiming that measures introduced by the ministry in 2001 to clamp down on cases of school bullying resulted in schools concealing the existence of bullying at their respective schools.

Speaking at a press conference after filing the lawsuit, the dead girl's father, Shinji, 56, said, "We took legal action so nobody else will have to suffer a tragedy similar to ours."

The ministry's Student Affairs Division said Tuesday its officials could not comment as they had not read the plaintiffs' complaint.

(Feb. 8, 2007)