People laid flowers Monday at Yokohama Port in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, to pray for those who died after contracting COVID-19 on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which arrived at the port five years ago. “We will not let the deaths of 14 people go to waste,” said Yasuhito Hirasawa, 69, co-head of a group formed by those who were on the ship at that time.
A lawsuit filed by a man in his 30s from Chiba Prefecture against his former civil engineering company in Abiko City, Chiba Prefecture for damages, alleging that he was discriminated against and forced to resign from the civil engineering company where he was employed as a disabled person through Hello Work because the company did not take his developmental disability into consideration, has been settled in the Chiba District Court. The former employer will pay the man approximately 300,000 yen in settlement money. According to the man’s attorney, the settlement was reached in October last year. The settlement terms stated that the former employer apologized to the man for not fully understanding the characteristics of his developmental disability and would pay him the settlement money.
It has been revealed that in October last year, a male student with a disability attending a special needs school in Mie Prefecture was filmed in a school toilet by two high school students and posted on social media, causing him to miss school for an extended period of time, and the school has determined that this constitutes a serious case of bullying. According to the Mie Prefectural Board of Education, in October last year, a male student with an intellectual disability (then 17) attending a special needs school, which is attached to a prefectural high school in the prefecture, was filmed in a shared toilet stall by two male high school students and posted on the social media site Instagram.
The government has decided to strengthen support for children and families who may have developmental disorders from fiscal 2025, officials announced on the 1st Local childcare, health, and welfare officials will work together with medical institutions. The aim is to establish a system where families can receive “developmental consultations” regarding their children’s characteristics and concerns, such as delayed speech and restlessness, at an early stage, leading to smooth support. In the support framework, developmental consultations will be conducted in places close to children and families, such as health centers that conduct infant health checkups and childcare support centers. Psychologists dispatched from medical institutions commissioned by local governments will provide consultations. An assessment of the child’s characteristics will be conducted and an explanation will be given as to whether a specialist examination is necessary in the future.
A lawsuit filed by a man in his 30s from Chiba Prefecture against his former civil engineering company in Abiko City, Chiba Prefecture for damages, alleging that he was discriminated against and forced to resign from the civil engineering company where he was employed as a disabled person through Hello Work because the company did not take his developmental disability into consideration, has been settled in the Chiba District Court. The former employer will pay the man approximately 300,000 yen in settlement money. According to the man’s attorney, the settlement was reached in October last year. The settlement terms stated that the former employer apologized to the man for not fully understanding the characteristics of his developmental disability and would pay him the settlement money.
The ruling at the Osaka High Court indicated that the reduction of lost earnings for children, including those with disabilities, should only occur in exceptional cases. This is a significant change in the conventional thinking that reducing amounts for those who are disabled is inevitable. It can be said that this has had an impact on what compensation for damages should be like for people who are disabled.
Elementary, junior high and high school students accounted for 527 of those completing suicide, the highest level since records began in 1980, with the number staying above 500 for the third straight year. Of them, a record 163 junior high school students killed themselves.
The number of people who killed themselves in Japan fell to 20,268 in 2024, marking the second consecutive year of decline and the second-lowest level after 20,169 in 2019, the health ministry said Wednesday.
A record number of public school educators took leave due to mental disorders in fiscal 2023, the third straight year of increase, according to a ministry survey. A record 7,119 educators, or 0.77 percent of the total, temporarily stepped away from their positions under the official leave system for mental illnesses in fiscal 2023, up 580 individuals, or 0.06 percentage point, from the previous year.
PFAS concentrations in blood samples from 87.4 pct of those tested in a town in Okayama Prefecture, western Japan, exceeded a U.S. standard for the potentially carcinogenic chemicals, it was learned Tuesday. A total of 709 people, aged 2 to 102, took blood tests between November and December last year in the town of roughly 10,000 inhabitants. The highest recorded level of PFOA stood at 718.8 nanograms per milliliter of blood, while the average amounts of the seven PFAS substances totaled 151.5 nanograms, both significantly higher than the U.S. health standard.
A man charged with the 2019 fatal arson attack on a Kyoto Animation Co. studio has dropped his appeal to overturn his death sentence, a Japanese high court said Tuesday, finalizing the verdict over one of the country’s worst mass-murders.
Barrier Free Japan