Photo/Illutration The essay on human rights written by a junior high school student who took her own life after being bullied by classmates (Seiko Sadakuni)

WARABI, Saitama Prefecture--In the 20 years since a 14-year-old girl here took her own life due to school bullying, the same troubling issues remain in classrooms around the country.

Her parents hope that their daughter’s story will inspire children to cherish life and develop empathy for others.

A photo of the smiling girl rests on the family altar at home. Her 63-year-old mother remembers her daughter always laughing and joking with her friends.

Not wanting to put her daughter in a grave alone, away from the family, the mother still keeps her ashes at home.

Everything her daughter cherished and wrote was precious, and she kept her daughter’s room just as it was until the year before last.

The girl was only in junior high school when she killed herself on June 3, 2004.

Investigations at school revealed that she had been forced by classmates to ask five male students out on a date. She had been forced to ask the first boy out the day before her death.

Additionally, a few close friends started to ignore her or call her “annoying” and “creepy.”

In a notebook found at home, the girl said she hated the mortifying prank with the boys. While condemning the classmates who orchestrated it, she also expressed gratitude to others.

After the funeral, the girl’s parents received an essay she had written about human rights, which was turned in the day before her death. It conveyed her struggles with bullying.

“No one likes being rejected, it’s painful and sad,” she wrote.

“Bullying drives you to the depths of despair.”

“No one can live alone. That’s why we make friends. You can turn your loneliness into the joy of being with others.”

The girl often talked to her family about school, but she never told them she was being bullied.

“I think she wanted to be her usual self in front of her family, not the version of herself being bullied,” said her father, 63.

At the request of the girl’s parents, the municipal board of education archived the essay alongside the investigation report into her death. The parents hoped the composition would become a valuable resource for anti-bullying education programs.

They received letters from junior high school students in Oita Prefecture who read the essay in a class on bullying. The letters said, “Bullying is killing people’s hearts” and “The essay encouraged me to stop bullying.”

The responses were exactly what the parents had hoped for.

“Please keep my daughter’s message of cherishing life in a corner of your heart,” they wrote back. “We hope you become someone who can empathize with others.”

According to an education ministry survey, at least 117 of 4,439 suicides among elementary, junior high and high school students between fiscal 2004 and 2022 were linked to bullying. The actual number could be higher due to unreported cases.

In fiscal 2022, schools recognized 681,948 cases of bullying. The number of serious incidents that caused significant physical or mental harm to victims reached 923, both figures representing record highs.

The girl’s parents are heartbroken that bullying persists. While understanding that the school community means a lot to children, they urge those struggling to know there’s another world waiting.

It’s OK not to go to school. There’s a different future waiting after junior high, high school or college.

“Please get away from the children who are bullying you and wait for time to pass,” they said. “You are not alone. The day will come when you can feel better.”

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