Reports of school bullying increase as Japan confronts high youth suicide rate

One of the latest suicide cases involved a 13-year-old girl Rima Kasai, who jumped in front of a train after enduring more than a year of bullying by classmates, including being labelled a

TOKYO: Schoolyard bullying has long bedeviled Japan where some students have taken their own lives after being harassed in person or online through emails, text messages and blogs.

Bullying and suicide first entered Japanese national discourse in 1986, when a 13-year-old boy hanged himself in a shopping centre toilet after repeated bullying at school that included a mock funeral that teachers took part in.