The government should plan prevention measures to help people deemed at high risk for suicide, including young people, pregnant women, mothers with newborns and overworked employees, an expert on preventive efforts said Tuesday.
"Considering that children attending elementary or junior high school are committing suicide, we as a society should be determined to prevent this," Yutaka Motohashi, director of the government-affiliated Japan Support Center for Suicide Countermeasures, said during a news conference at the Foreign Press Center Japan in Tokyo.
In July, the government approved a new suicide prevention guideline aimed at cutting the suicide rate by 30 percent over the next decade — the first amendment in five years. As of 2015, Japan's rate of 18.5 suicides per 100,000 people remains higher than in other major economies.