For centuries, impoverished Japanese would bring their elders to mountaintops and leave them to die, a practice known as ‘ubasute’ or ‘granny dumping’.
Now it’s being revived with reports of elderly people being taken to hospitals or charities and basically given up for ‘adoption’.
Some not-for-profit organisations have even set up ‘senior citizen postboxes’, offices where parents can be dropped off.
They are then transferred to a local retirement home, where the state provides for their care.
A growing problem
Blame for the ‘dumping’ is being put on the growing number of adult children struggling to meet the costs of caring for ageing parents.
In the Saitama prefecture, around 10 elderly people are abandoned each year, with the nationwide number estimated to be in the low hundreds.
“There are a lot of people who have a certain amount of income but who still live in poverty and struggle terribly with relatives who can’t look after themselves,” a local social worker Takanori Fujita told the Times of London. “They are reluctant to ask for help because they feel it’s shameful.”
Over a quarter of Japan’s population – nearly 34 million people – is over the age of 65.
Just recently, we reported here that 20 per cent of crimes in Japan are now committed by the elderly as jail is seen as a preferable option to life on the outside.
