A 25-year-old woman was given a suspended prison term Wednesday for starving her 14-month-old son to death, but the Nagoya District Court ordered that she be placed on rehabilitative probation.
In handing down the sentence on Miyuki Tamura, presiding Judge Toyoshige Numari cited the chain reaction set in motion by the abuse she suffered at the hands of her own parents, a problem experts say is a key factor leading to child abuse.
The court sentenced Tamura to three years, suspended for five years, for the death sometime around last July 2 of her son, Kenichi, whom she had failed to adequately feed for about two weeks. Tamura had been working at a restaurant at the time.
The baby weighed only 5.1 kg and his diaper had not been changed for more than a week when he was found dead by paramedics. The weight is equivalent to that of a 1- to 2-month-old boy.