Japan has appointed its first Minister for Loneliness after the country's suicide rate saw a rise for the first time in 11 years during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a report by The Japan Times, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga added a Minister of Loneliness to his Cabinet earlier this month in an effort to reduce loneliness and social isolation among its residents as the country deals with increasing suicide numbers.
Suga tapped minister Tetsushi Sakamoto, who is also in charge of combating the nation's falling birth rate and revitalising regional economies, to oversee the government's efforts to address the issue.
“Women are suffering from isolation more (than men are), and the number of suicides is on a rising trend. I hope you will identify problems and promote policy measures comprehensively,” Suga told Sakamoto in a news conference last February 12, the Japan Times reported.
Sakamato said that he plans to hold an emergency forum in late February to listen to opinions from people facing loneliness and isolation. "I hope to carry out activities to prevent social loneliness and isolation and to protect ties between people."
The number of people taking their own lives in Japan rose for the first time in over a decade last year as the pandemic reversed years of progress in combatting a stubbornly high suicide rate, according to a report from AFP.
In January, Japan's health and welfare ministry said that 20,919 people died by suicide in 2020 according to preliminary data, compared to 3,460 deaths from coronavirus in the same period.
It marks the first year-on-year rise in suicides in more than a decade, with women and children in particular taking their lives at higher rates.
Japan has long had the highest suicide rate among the Group of Seven advanced countries, though regionally, South Korea registers higher figures. But the government has worked in recent years to better support people with mental health needs.
"For suicide in Japan, the rise was a major event and I think it was a big turning point," said Michiko Ueda, an associate professor of political science at Waseda University in Tokyo who studies suicide in Japan.
"The coronavirus is definitely a major factor," she added, warning "we cannot deny the possibility that figures will rise again this year." (With a report from AFP)