Sexless Married Couples

1 in 3 Japanese married couples are sexless

"Almost one-third of Japan's married couples are sexless, with about 20 percent of unions bereft of physical intimacy for one year or more, an alarming poll conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and the Japan Family Planning Association showed.

Some 28 percent of married men and 34 percent of married women said they had not had sex with their spouse for at least one month, the period determined to be the defining point of sexlessness.

At 44 percent, nearly half the sexless respondents said they felt dealing with the opposite sex was a bother, well above the 31 percent of sexually active people who believed the same..."

Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, April 26, 2005

Suicide Sites

Suicide site users should be reported: panel

"Internet service providers should report to police all people who post messages on suicide Web sites, a National Police Agency security panel recommended Thursday.

Japan has seen a spate of group suicides by people who met through such Web sites.

The NPA plans to ask ISPs through an industry group to disclose the names, addresses and other personal information of users. It hopes to have the system in place by summer, NPA officials said..

... under the recommendation, ISPs would be asked to release personal data on users who have posted messages containing individual or group suicide plans ..."

he Japan Times: April 22, 2005

Most Sleep Deprived Nation

A nation asleep at the wheel

"... 41 percent of Japanese people manage six hours or less zzzzs per night, making it the most sleep-deprived nation on Earth...

... According to Makoto Uchiyama, director of the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, sleep loss is hitting Japan's millions of middle-aged men particularly hard.

"When it comes to relationships at work and at home, sleep loss seems to be having a devastating effect," he said. "And it is possibly linked to the huge numbers of men driven to suicide in middle age."

Men in their forties and fifties now make up 40 percent of the 35,000 people ending their own lives in Japan every year, and the current upsurge in the suicide rate can be mostly attributed to a massive rise in suicides among this group..."

Japan Times, April 14, 2005

Homeless

Osaka homeless dying from neglect

"The bodies of 1,052 homeless people were found after they died from illness, starvation, bitter coldness or committed suicide in Osaka Prefecture in a five-year period until 2004, according to a government survey.

Members of a Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare panel who carried out the survey on homeless people in the prefecture said that death could have been avoided in many cases.

"I think many of the deaths could have been prevented. Medical treatment, including mental care programs, should be implemented immediately," said Ryoji Matoba, professor on forensic medicine at Osaka University.

In cooperation with Osaka Prefectural Police, panel members investigated 50,000 cases of people who died in uncertain circumstances in the prefecture between 2000 and 2004. They learned that 1,052 of them were homeless people and that 70 percent of them died of illness.

A total of 38 died of starvation and 76 were frozen to death, while members believe that 122 others committed suicide, showing the need for mental care programs..."

Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, April 16, 2005

Child Abuse Guidelines

Ministry debuts child-abuse checklist

"The welfare ministry has created guidelines to help child consultants spot child abuse, officials said Wednesday.

The package includes a 10-point checklist that has points on bruising and scarring as well as a child's physical growth, officials said Wednesday. It contains graphs showing a child's average height and weight at each age to check whether a child is developing properly.

The guidelines will be given to child-consultation centers and municipal governments nationwide to help determine if children have been abused and to develop measures to help them, according to the officials at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare..."