According to the Kanagawa prefectural government, in February of this year, it was confirmed that twenty-two users of the Nakai Yamayurien facility for the disabled were physically restrained for more than eight hours, including being kept in locked rooms and tied to wheelchairs.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) analyzed the number of cases of abuse of people with disabilities for the past five years through fiscal year 2019 for the first time. The national average rate of recognition of abuse by employees of facilities for the disabled is 20%, with Miyazaki having the highest rate at 32%. The lowest rate was 6% in both Ibaraki and Gifu, a difference of 26 percentage points.
Two daycare centers in Kawasaki City that provide daycare services for children with disabilities were found to have been abusing children by throwing them to the ground, and the city has revoked the designation of the centers.
In response to a series of scandals nationwide at the “after-school day service office” that entrusts elementary, junior high and high school students with disabilities after school and on holidays, Kobe City will sent external personnel to patrol the facilities in the city from May.
On April 7, the Arima Police Station of the Hyogo Prefectural Police arrested a 14-year-old male student on suspicion of attempted murder for attempting to kill a 25-year-old man at a facility for the intellectually disabled in Kobe City’s Kita Ward. The man is in a critical condition and unconscious.
Oita Prefecture reported that in fiscal year 2019 ‘sexual acts’ such as kissing took place at care facilities in the prefecture.
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, reported that a total of 734 people with disabilities were abused by staff at facilities for the disabled during fiscal year 2019, with two deaths as a direct result of abuse.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) announced on March 26 that there were 2,202 cases of abuse suffered by people with disabilities from family members, welfare facilities and employees of business establishments in fiscal 2019, with 2,398 victims. The number has remained almost unchanged from the previous fiscal year. Two of the victims died. A record 8,519 cases were reported to the local government.
Since September 2018, three residents have been transported from the facility as an emergency seven times in total, and all have been diagnosed with holes in the intestines, but the facility did not suspect the possibility of abuse at all.
A former temporary worker at a facility for the disabled in Higashiura Town, Aichi Prefecture, was arrested on suspicion of injury for kicking the abdomen of a resident in his 50s and causing serious injury. The man subsequently died, and police are investigating whether there are multiple other residents with similar injuries.
Barrier Free Japan