This past week the nation was shocked by the news of yet another small child who died at the hands of abusive and negligent adults.
In the case of the 3-year-old boy who starved to death in Kyoto, it has been revealed that the police, alerted by a neighbor last March that the boy's 6-year-old sister was roaming the neighborhood after midnight, brought the girl, who herself showed signs of possible abuse, to a public-welfare center for children.
The girl was subsequently placed in a facility. However, this fact, in combination with reports from other neighbors that they heard the boy crying for food over the past year, didn't lead to police action until it was too late and the boy was already dead.