EmeraldKing7:
Japan has appointed a “minister of loneliness” in a bid to reduce loneliness and social isolation among its residents as the country deals with rising suicide rates.

According to The Japan Times, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga created the role in early February, taking after the U.K., which created its own such role in 2018

Tetsushi Sakamoto will take on the role, the Times reported, while also handling the country’s falling birth rates and regional economies.

Figures from the National Police Agency showed that 20,919 people committed suicide in 2020, a 750-person increase from the previous year and the first consecutive rise in suicides in 11 years, the Times reported. According to the outlet, the surge is most noticeable among women and young people.

Suga said to 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 dying inside their homes and remaining undiscovered for long periods of times.

Japan rated the highest in terms of people aged 60 or older who felt they had no one to turn to in times of need, with 16 per cent of people saying so, compared with 13 per cent in the U.S.

In October, Japan saw more people die from suicide than had died from Covid-19 in all of 2020, the data shows.

There were 2,153 deaths from suicide in October alone, while Japan had seen 1,765 coronavirus-related deaths by the end of October 2020 for the whole year.

The United Kingdom was the first country to appoint a loneliness minister in 2018, after a 2017 report found that more than nine million people in the UK said they often or always felt lonely. But the role seems to not be a particularly desirable one, as the UK has gone through three loneliness ministers in three years.

Source-https://m.guardian.ng/life/japan-appoints-minister-of-loneliness-following-increase-in-suicide-rate

Cc:Lalasticlala, Mynd44, dominique

I question the sanity of these people.

Mr honourable minister, may I tell u that if u really want to end loneliness in your country just approve a visa free regime of just 1 year between Nigeria and Japan, and also and watch your country become the next full destination of men wey wan jakpa any time soon

We used to have commissioner for Happiness here in Naija..

Commissioner for happiness where u dey... Come and see ur mate oo

at least its way of creating jobs for jobless people.

Very touching.

Yes, this is an issue in Japan where too many people live and die alone.

So what will be his/her job??
Match making people?
Hosting orgies?
Party?

Honestly suicide is another serious issue that needs attention in our society today

Suicide in Japan is what the Government should control internally and not this, this won't stop anything.
Japan companies extra use its workers, you know all those kind of companies that doesn't care about the condition of their workers, they can work for more than 10hrs per day, it's a general problem in Japan, if it's a few companies doing now, there would be option, but this issue is general.

This is what the government should look into, if it's generally regulated, it'll help all the companies, it won't be a situation where some workers work for 10hrs and some do 6hrs..

This is why most Japanese don't have time for themselves and their families. And they're one of the least travellers in the world.