The mother of a 5-year-old girl admitted on Tuesday to parental neglect resulting in the child's death last year in the first court hearing for a high-profile abuse case that prompted the government to revise laws to better protect children.
It is suspected that the neglect by Yuri Funato, 27, caused her daughter Yua to die of sepsis after developing pneumonia in March last year in Tokyo's Meguro Ward, with the mother having failed to feed her adequately since around late January the same year.
She also failed to take her daughter to the hospital in late February last year, when the child became seriously weak from being physically abused by her father, Yudai Funato, 34, according to the indictment.