A young Tokyo mother who left her 3-year-old daughter alone at home for more than a week while she partied with her boyfriend was found guilty of causing the child’s death and handed an eight-year prison term on Feb. 9.

The trial of Saki Kakehashi, 26, at the Tokyo District Court shone a light on the urgency of systemic efforts to break chains of child abuse by those who were victims themselves.

Prosecutors sought an 11-year prison term for Kakehashi, a single mother and resident of Ota Ward who was charged with negligence as a guardian resulting in death. She was tried under the lay judge system.

According to the ruling, Kakehashi left her daughter, Noa, alone in their apartment from June 5 to June 13 last year to see her boyfriend in Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu, southern Japan.

She left the child in a bedroom with bottles of water and snacks. She also placed a couch against the bedroom door to prevent the girl from leaving the bedroom.

When Kakehashi returned home from the trip, she found the child unconscious. She called an ambulance. Noa’s death was confirmed at a hospital later. 

The child died of hydration and hunger, an autopsy showed.

“An invaluable life was lost by the heinous and selfish crime (of the accused),” Presiding Judge Kiichi Hiraide said in his ruling,

The court cited two factors behind the tragedy: the woman’s unhappy upbringing and her habit of leaving her daughter alone in the apartment.

THE MOTHER’S STORY

Kakehashi testified in court that she experienced abuse as a child.

She said that when she attended elementary school, her parents stabbed her with a knife and held her head under water in the bath. On other occasions, they tied her up in a garbage bag and left her for days without meals.

Kakehashi said her parents were eventually arrested on suspicion of custodial neglect.

Taking note of the woman’s background and lack of loving care while growing up, the court concluded she developed three character traits: distrust of others, an inability to express her true feelings to others and an excessive zeal to measure up to people’s expectations.

These characteristics, the court said, were “at play in a complicated manner” when she made the decision to abandon her daughter so she could spend time with her boyfriend.

However, the court also acknowledged that it was ultimately her own decision to leave the child as she had routinely done so in the past.

In May of last year, for example, Kakehashi left Noa alone for four days while she went to see her boyfriend.

“Her life history must be taken into consideration to some degree, but there is a limit to how much,” the ruling stated.

“It is beyond words to describe the agony and pain the girl must have felt as her body started to shut down and was unable to get help from the mother she badly needed,” it added.

At a news conference after the verdict, one of the lay judges, who is in her 20s, underlined the need to build a support system for victims of child abuse.

“I felt strongly during the trial that people who cannot call for help themselves are the ones who need immediate assistance,” she said. “We must think of how we can tackle this issue.”

The government is hampered by a lack of official data on how the “chain of child abuse” plays out in homes across the land.

Satoru Nishizawa, a professor of clinical psychology at Yamanashi Prefectural University who testified in court in Kakekashi’s defense, talked about the case during an interview with The Asahi Shimbun.

He said one reason for Kakekashi’s behavior stemmed from the fact she did not receive a therapy early on to address her own trauma resulting from being abused while growing up.

As a result, he said she “hungered for love” when she was placed in a child welfare center after experiencing abuse by her parents.

Nishizawa said he reckoned that about 30 percent of child abuse victims end up committing abuse themselves.

In calling for a review of the existing support system, he said victims need access to therapy to deal with their trauma and be treated in a manner that makes them feel cherished at a child welfare center.

Currently, eligibility for assistance individuals placed into protective custody at child welfare centers is restricted to those aged 18 or under. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is seeking to extend the age of eligibility through a revision to the Child Welfare Law expected to be submitted to the Diet during the current session.

But those older than their mid-20s will not be eligible to receive continued support.

Chie Haba, author of a 2019 book titled “I am a survivor of abuse,” called for an end to “the replication of abuse.”

Haba, 38, noted in her book that she was abused by her mother, who in turn had been mistreated by her own parents.

“The government should provide subsidies to adults when they get treatment for their childhood abuse experiences,” she said. “But the first step for the government is to survey how often victims of child abuse are involved in abusing their own offspring.”