Children who are at high risk of being abused should be protected without hesitation, but there is not enough room to take them in. The situation in which adequate care is not available should be resolved as soon as possible.
There have been many cases in which the temporary shelters of child consultation centers, which take care of abused children, have been filled to capacity. According to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey, as of December last year, 20% of the 139 temporary shelters nationwide at that time accepted more children than their maximum capacity.
Especially in urban areas, many temporary shelters chronically exceed capacity, with one of them caring for 2.3 times the number of abused children it had space for. They handle the overflow by using dining and study rooms as bedrooms, but this cannot be said to be a desirable living environment.
Under the Child Welfare Law, temporary shelters are emergency facilities for children with problems such as abuse and delinquency. In principle, during a stay of up to two months at temporary shelters, child consultation centers survey the condition of the children and their families, and decide whether to return them to their homes or place them in other facilities, such as an orphanage.
In response to a series of deaths caused by child abuse in recent years, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has issued notices to child consultation centers and local governments nationwide, asking them not to hesitate in temporarily caring for children who are at high risk of being abused.
When temporary shelters are full, some officials at child consultation centers have reportedly confessed that they are implicitly pressured by their superiors not to take these children to the shelters. This is a serious matter that could endanger the lives of children. There should be no hesitation in providing the necessary protection due to a lack of space.
Child abuse is worsening, with the number of cases in which children were temporarily taken into custody rising in fiscal 2018 to 46,000, up 40% over the past five years. An increasing number of children have become emotionally and behaviorally unstable as a result of abuse, and require individual care.
Some children have to live in temporary shelters for more than half a year beyond their initial two-month period of stay.
The central and local governments need to strengthen their preparedness to accept abused children, through such measures as expanding living spaces for them, as well as increasing the number of staffers and improving their specialized skills.
It is worrisome that many problems have occured at temporary shelters. From 2016 to 2019, there were more than 300 cases in which children at temporary shelters were injured in fights or through self-harm.
One reason for this may be a lack of attention from staff members at temporary shelters. Some shelters are said to have rules, such as a ban on private conversation, to cope with large numbers of children. There is no denying that such strict management is stressful for children.
In September, the welfare ministry set up a panel of experts to study ways to provide temporary protection. The panel will also discuss how to improve the living environment at temporary shelters.
Careful consideration should be given to ensure that children who have suffered from abuse will not suffer further harm from being protected.
-- The original Japanese article appeared in The Yomiuri Shimbun on Oct. 8, 2020.
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