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EDUCATION|SOCIETY

The Death of a 3-Year-Old Girl Made Me Furious

Heartbreaking accidents question the safety of Japan’s childcare

Yuko Tamura
Japonica Publication
5 min readSep 15, 2022
Photo from Pakutaso.

Japan has never passed a law that prohibits leaving children in an unattended motor vehicle, known in the U.S. as Kaitlyn’s Law.

Despite increasing instances of scorching heat, Japanese parents still leave children in their cars―sometimes unintentionally, other times on purpose.

Although it is hard to believe, some parents who suffered the ultimate loss of their children confessed that they had simply forgotten their children in their car. And it happens almost every summer.

Hearing about those little ones dying in the heat makes me sick to my stomach. But there’s no law to punish irresponsible adults. And recently, it occurred again in an inhumane fashion.

Unpunished Homicide

On Sept. 5, a man and woman in their 70s left a 3-year-old girl in a vehicle on a hot day. When the girl was found 5 hours later, it was too late to save her.

Can you guess who these elderly citizens were? Grandparents struggling with memory loss? Is one of them suffering from severe dementia?

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Japonica Publication
Japonica Publication

Published in Japonica Publication

Japonica: the publication for everything Japan: culture, life, business, language, travel, food, and everything else.

Yuko Tamura
Yuko Tamura

Written by Yuko Tamura

Cultural journalist based in Tokyo. Bylines: The Japan Times, Lonely Planet, CNBC, YourTango and more. EiC of Japonica.

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