The Japanese prime minister has appointed a “loneliness minister” to his cabinet in response to a recent rise in suicides.
Like the Japan Times reported, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga created the role in early February, following the UK, which created its own role in 2018.
Tetsushi Sakamoto will take on the role, the Times reported, while managing the country’s falling birth rates and regional economies.
Figures from the National Police Agency showed that 20,919 people committed suicide in 2020, an increase of 750 people from the previous year and the first consecutive increase in suicides in 11 years, the Times reported. According to the media, the increase is most noticeable among women and young people.
Suga told the country’s budget committee earlier this month that people from all walks of life are vulnerable, the Times reported.
The newspaper noted that Japan is familiar with loneliness, as kodokushi or “lonely deaths” are common. They involve people who die indoors and remain undiscovered for long periods of time.
Japan has got the highest rating in terms of people aged 60 and over who felt they had no one to turn to in times of need, with 16 percent of people saying so, compared to 13 percent in USA
The pandemic has worsened feelings of isolation overall. In the United States, the Clark County School District in Nevada partially reopened schools in response to an increase in student suicides during the pandemic, with the number of student suicides doubled from the previous year.