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Suicide cases soar during Covid-19, Japan warns the world page all

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TOKYO, KOMPAS.com – Citizen mental health alert alarm Japan during a pandemic Covid-19 has been ringing since the middle of last summer.

Founder of counseling services online in Japan, Koki Ozora said there were already many residents Japan, especially young women using their services.

“In July, we started getting a lot of messages from people saying they wanted to kill themselves,” he told CBS News.

Ozora, 21, is a student majoring in Sociology at Tokyo’s elite Keio University. It launched its text messaging service in March.

This is a subject he is familiar with because he previously survived a suicide attempt thanks to the intervention of an alert high school teacher.

Realized that demand for counseling was at its peak when most hotlines were closed, late at night,

Ozora recruits a network of Japanese volunteers living abroad, who can respond to messages all night Japanese time.

As of November 3, the service has sent more than 300,000 messages from nearly 26,000 clients in Japan.

“There are a number of hotlines like us, but the need is enormous,” he said. “There are too many calls to handle.”

Also read: It is Important to Maintain Adolescent Mental Health During the Pandemic, How?

Meanwhile, Tokyo psychiatrist Chiyoko Uchida saw many female clients buckling under the burden posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

“The life of my patient has been turned upside down,” he told CBS News.

Suicide cases have reportedly claimed more people in “Sakura Country” than the Covid-19 pandemic.

Before the pandemic, suicides continued to occur in Japanese men. They are less likely to seek help.

Men accounted for about two-thirds of the 2,158 self-attributable deaths recorded in October according to Health Ministry statistics released last week.

Male suicides increased by more than 20 percent in the last month, compared to the same month in 2019.

But the female suicide rate has soared more than 80 percent, continuing the chilling increase that began in August.

Younger women – overworked part-time and irregular jobs – have been disproportionately disadvantaged by layoffs and closures due to the pandemic in Japan.

Also read: People are asked to maintain mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic

In a survey conducted by Professor Michiko Ueda of Tokyo’s Waseda University, a third of women under 40 reported losing their jobs. Their income fell significantly, compared to 18 percent of their male counterparts.

Ozora, founder of Anata no Ibasho (Your Place), which offers free counseling via text message – uncovers one possible reason the organization’s customers gravitate toward their teens and 20s.

“The biggest reason is that women lose their jobs and don’t know how to support themselves and their families,” she told CBS News.

Due to its historically high self-inflicted death rates, Japan has developed a very fast, accurate and detailed system for tracking suicides.

The monthly figures, released in a few weeks, are preliminary and very gloomy for Japan. Experts warn that the same impact appears in other countries.

Also read: Pilgrims Umrah during the Pandemic: We Must Prepare Mentally …

The violent Covid-19 lockdown has been widely blamed for increasing suicidal ideation in other countries. Meanwhile, virus restrictions in Japan are relatively soft, actually relatively soft. The government relies on voluntary obedience, without penalty.

“The message I want to take is if the impact of the pandemic is much lighter and we still see the big effect that this suicide could happen anywhere,” Ueda said.

Experts say for those who manage to keep their jobs, prolonged teleworking has had a major impact on mental health.

“While some people enjoy working from home, there are a number of downsides,” according to Uchida, a Tokyo psychiatrist. Not being in the office means not having someone near you when you need to vent.

Working remotely also makes it harder to get guidance from a supervisor, he added.

“For better or for worse, feedback on your work can be a source of self-respect.”

Whether pandemic or not, this year’s spate of celebrity suicides has exacerbated a spike in self-inflicted deaths among women, according to Professor Ueda.

His research shows that on the day celebrity suicides hit the news, self-committed deaths jumped by as much as 6%. The effects last for days.

Also read: Putin’s bodyguard found suicide in the Kremlin

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