Suffering school girl Mia Kurihara didn’t shy away from giving her name when she begged her teacher for help in an elementary school questionnaire a year before her death, saying she was being beaten by her father.
The 10-year-old girl died at her home in Noda, Chiba Prefecture, on Jan. 24 after her father, Yuichiro Kurihara, 41, pulled her hair and sprayed her with cold water in the shower and choked her hard enough around the neck with his hands to leave scratches,according to police.
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Mia filled out the questionnaire on Nov. 6, 2017, when she was attending the municipal Yamazaki Elementary School in Noda after she and her family moved from Okinawa Prefecture earlier that year.
The questionnaire started with such instructions, “As the school will keep what you say confidential, please give honest answers” and “You do not need to give your name if you do not want to.”
The teacher scribbled down in the questionnaire’s empty space that she “was beaten yesterday, the head, back and neck, and still feels pain. (Her father) covered her mouth and pushed her to the floor. She wonders whether her body is all right. (Her father) struck her back and neck with all his might. (Her father) punched her head with his fist 10 times. (Her father) hit her back while her mother was not around. In Okinawa, her mother was beaten.”
The Noda education board gave a copy of Mia’s questionnaire to her father on Jan. 15, 2018, after deleting the part filled by the homeroom teacher. Board officials said he “blustered” them into doing so.
A few days later, the girl transferred to another elementary school in the city. In two more questionnaires completed after the one at Yamazaki Elementary School, the girl never again complained about violence at the hands of her father.
Nagisa, 31, is not believed to have been actively involved in the abuse. But she may have looked the other way while her daughter was being attacked and did not alert the police, according to the sources.
Reference: Abused girl cried for help in school survey before her death
