The family of Hayato Fukuura, a second-year student at Kaisei Gakuen Private High School who committed suicide due to bullying, launched a signature campaign calling for revisions to the Act on Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying.

The Act on Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying was enacted in 2013 in response to the 2011 bullying suicide incident of a second-year junior high school student in Otsu City. The law includes specific responses that schools, local governments, and the national government should take due to schools and boards of education attempting to cover up bullying and avoid responsibility for it.

However, in Hayato’s case, the Act on Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying did not function. Kaisei Gakuen attempted to cover up the bullying suicide in 2017, and Nagasaki Prefecture condoned it. In 2018, a third-party committee consisting of lawyers and former principal of other school reported that found that bullying was the main cause of suicide, but the school has continued to deny this statement to this day.

In the past 10 years since the law was enacted, schools and administrations have repeatedly concealed facts and evaded responsibility across the country. Children who suffer from bullying continue to commit suicide.

Schools are not charged with any crime even if they violate the law. The administration can be dismissed even if it does not provide guidance to such schools. Hayato’s family believes that the law needs to be amended to change the current situation.

“We believe it is necessary for the government to create a system for schools and local governments that ignore bullying or make false reports where on-site investigations are directly conducted and disciplinary action is imposed.”

“Is this law really helping children? How many children have committed suicide as a result of bullying in the last ten years? Who is the Act on Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying for? What is the purpose of the law?”

Signatures will be collected online at change.org and submitted to the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, as well as the government and opposition parties.

From the online petition platform “change.org”

(Originally published in Japanese on December 15, 2023. Translation by Mana Shibata.)

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