“You are alone in the toilets. We feel that it is at such times that sad thoughts can come to your mind,” explains a Japanese official.
As in many other countries, Japan saw a jump in suicides with the Covid-19 pandemic as many people went into quarantine.
In 2020, nearly 500 children and teenagers committed suicide in Japan, a record number and nearly double the number in 2016, according to the health ministry.
Faced with this sad reality, the authorities of Japan’s Yamanashi prefecture (west of Tokyo), thought of an… original way to prevent young people from possible suicidal tendencies: they distributed to universities of the mind toilet paper with printed messages to prevent suicides .
“Honey, you go through hard days and pretend everything is fine. You don’t have to tell us all…but why not some of them?’ is one of the messages one can read, printed in blue letters on the white rolls.
In addition to these kinds of messages, the toilet paper also has reassuring images, such as a curled-up cat.
The messages have been written by a mental health professional and are accompanied by numbers for suicide prevention hotlines.
Authorities in Yamanashi distributed 6,000 such rolls to 12 universities in the area last month.
“You are alone in the toilets. We feel that it is at times like these that sad thoughts can come to mind,” district chief Kenichi Miyazawa told AFP today.
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
