Suicides increase as corporate restructuring continues

The Hotline for Life, a telephone counseling group for preventing
suicide, marked its 30th founding anniversary in October.

In an interview reported by Akahata on November 30, Saito Yukio, the
Japan Hotline for Life federation standing director, said that in 2000,
those who made calls to the Hotline to say they want to die accounted for
7.54 percent, which shows a sharp increase from one percent in 1975. Many
are in their forties and fifties.

Saito said that the question of mental health for workers has become more
serious than ever, reflecting the harsh social and economic situation in the
prolonged economic recession and rampant corporate restructuring.

He took note of the fact that the middle-aged people who committed
suicide are almost all working without unions or out of jobs.

He also drew attention to the fact that middle aged men who are thinking
of committing suicide don't use the hotline and instead opt to do it
unannounced. Men of this generation think that if they show their weakness,
they will become targets of corporate restructuring.

Therefore such people do not consult in-house health or mental clinics
available at the company where they work.

Independent institutions with which such people can consult without
having to identify themselves are necessary. Japan should introduce this
system from Europe by which workers can consult such outside institutions at
the company's expense without the company knowing which workers are being
consulted.

Saito said, "A review of the past 30 years angered me in that people of
the generations contributing the most to Japan's high-rate economic growth
with their hard work are now the first to be driven out. I do not have the
power to stop the trend, but I want to relieve their suffering as much as
possible." (end)