Woman who fatally stabbed her 2 children ordered to spend 8 years behind bars
10th Feb 2006
Mainichi News - Japan
TAKASAKI, Gunma -- A jobless woman who fatally stabbed her two children before unsuccessfully attempting to kill herself was ordered Friday to spend eight years behind bars.
The local branch of the Maebashi District Court convicted Noriko Sekiguchi, 34, of Takasaki, of murder. Her defense lawyers had asked the court for leniency on the grounds that she was mentally unstable at the time of the crime because she had trouble raising her children.
Sekiguchi made up her mind to kill her 2-year-old and 3-month-old sons before trying to commit suicide after suspecting that her elder son might be
autistic, according to the ruling.
Sekiguchi fatally stabbed her two sons with a knife at their home in May last year, the ruling said. She then stabbed her own chest more than 10 times, but lived.
She left a suicide note saying, "I don't want my children to (survive and) experience hardship." (Mainichi)
Source: http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/n...9000c.html
The important parts of that are 'might be autistic'.
Was it just the fear that made her do such a terrible thing? Is that fear so intense for parents that its better that the child dies just for the potential of having the condition???
I wish people who say that a prenatal test would not lead to abortions of autistics, but only to the parents being prepared for it, would read this kind of thing.
I believe this poor women committed this terrible act because of the shame and social stigma of having brought an autistic child into the world.
Psychological theories of autism specifically blamed the mother for a child's autism - the "Frigid Mother" of Freudian attachment theory which was widely believed until the 1970s - and much of this stigma still lingers on.
She may, of course, have suffered from post-partum psychosis and such, but there's no way to guess from such a short report.
If only this stricken mother had been able to hear the positive message AFF has to offer.
We have an article somewhere about Japan, and that in parts, there is still the belief there that autism is somehow the fault of the parents.
Misery thrives upon ignorance.
Regardless of whether her children were possibly autistic or not, she was only given 8 years for killing them.
That makes her childrens lives worth 4 years each!
I'd say i was appaled by the incident, but more often than not, you'll find insane things happening in Japan, the reason she most likely did this was because of financial difficulties and emotional problems, it's estimated that being jobless in Japan can get you in a debt of well over 300,000 USD in under 6 months if you live in the wrong part of japan, also considering the fact that they have a heavily performance-dependant culture, it's not an uncommon thing for family killings like these to occur, other known incidents which take place in Japan and other asian countries are based on the belief that you have to give it your all, even if it means dying, if you can't do that, you're worthless. Quite frankly, these beliefs are outdated, now they are starting to wane, but in the 70's and 80's it was common for men to work themselves to death, even in office jobs. (there's a Japanese word for this, i remember the translation being something like "working oneself to death")
As much as the asian society has changed, many companies and businesses still have a 'company family' structure, getting a job is very hard in Japan, especially if you're above thirty, and have two children.
In other words: the possible autism may be the cause, but is more likely to be one of the causes.
The competition in Japan for academic excellence and good jobs is insane. Little 2 year olds are already being "crammed" academically so they can get into the "right school". These kids need time to just be children but sadly, there is so much pressure to succeed and excel.
I read a very sad story in a paper a few years ago about a Japanese woman charged with murder. She and this other woman in her town had 2 year old daughters and because the other woman's child was doing better in school than her's, she murdered the other child and buried her in a playground.
It is also common to read about older children and teenagers in Japan killing themselves because of the "shame" of failing subjects in school.