Three teachers at a nursery school in central Japan have been arrested on suspicion of abusing them, including regularly hitting them on the head, holding them upside down, and locking them in a bathroom.
Shizuoka prefectural police said Sunday they arrested three women accused of attacking at least three children in June at a nursery school in Susono, a city at the foot of Mount Fuji.
Susono’s mayor, Harukaze Murata, told reporters on Monday that he had also filed a criminal complaint against the school’s director, Toshihiko Sakurai, for covering up abuse. He asked the police to widen the investigation.
In an incident in June, a teacher was accused of holding a boy upside down. According to the police, another teacher pushed the girl in the face and the third slapped another boy on the head.
Their arrests followed a search of the private school Saturday in response to the city’s disclosure of 15 counts of alleged abuse between June and August.
An internal investigation found the three teachers routinely slapped children in the face and head, forced them to cry, threatened them with cutter knives, verbally abused the children by calling them “ugly” and “fat,” and locked them inside a restroom or storage room, according to the city.
Murata accused the school’s director of “covering up” the abuse by getting other teachers to sign papers needed to cover up the problem and delaying explanations to parents, calling her case “disgusting.”
The three teachers, all in their 30s, reportedly told investigators they believed the children’s behavior was “discipline,” while the director said he only signed the document to protect the privacy of those involved and denied trying to cover up the abuse.
The city has faced public criticism for sitting on the case for more than three months since a whistleblower first came forward in mid-August to reveal “inappropriate” incidents at the school. Murata said he took the criticism seriously and would take a pay cut for two months and punish three senior officials.
Separate investigations into possible abuse at two other nursery schools are ongoing.
In Sendai, northern Japan, authorities are conducting an internal investigation after children were forced to strip to their underwear at mealtimes so they wouldn’t soil their clothes. At another school in the northern city of Toyama, police are investigating teachers on suspicion of locking crying children in storage facilities or hitting their backs with sticks to order them to move.
Experts say nursery teachers are underpaid and schools face chronic staff shortages and harsh working environments.
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