Child abuse in Japan hits record high

Child abuse in Japan has hit a record high with the number of cases reported in fiscal 2014 that ended in March, the welfare ministry announced

The ministry on Thursday said the number of cases that its child consultation centres throughout Japan handled reached about 89,000 in the last fiscal year. This is up 20.5 percent from the previous year, public broadcaster NHK reported.

The figure is the highest ever since the ministry began records in 1990.

Osaka posted the largest number, at 13,738, followed by Kanagawa with 10,190 and Tokyo with 7,814.

The officials also disclosed the cases in which children were killed by abuse in the year that ended in March of last year. They said that, excluding murder-suicide cases, 36 children died.

Of them, 44 percent were aged less than one year.