Ijime (Bullying) and the School's Response Framework
Bullying in a Japanese school, いじめ (ijime, "bullying in the Japanese school context"), runs from physical acts to the quiet group ostracism the system knows best, and FY2024 surveys recognized over 769,000 cases. Since 2013 a national law has required every school to maintain a standing anti-bullying body and escalate serious cases beyond the classroom. This guide explains what the school owes, how parents escalate, and where foreign families face extra friction.12
Procedures, fees, and requirements can change. Confirm current details with your municipal board of education or your child's school. This article is general information, not legal advice; for protective-order or criminal-complaint questions about a specific case, consult a licensed bengoshi (lawyer, 弁護士), and for the school track consult the school counselor or board of education.
Overview
The Act defines bullying as physical or psychological acts by a school-related child, including online acts, that cause the victim pain or suffering.1 Schools, teachers, families, local residents, and governments share the statutory duty to overcome it together.1
The FY2024 survey recognized 769,022 cases, up for the fourth straight year, with 76.1% resolved by year-end; serious cases reached a record 1,405, and 8 of 413 student suicides were linked to bullying (as of the FY2024 MEXT survey; confirm current figures with MEXT).2 Rising recognition reflects reporting effort as well as incidence, which is why the response machinery matters more than any single count.
What ijime looks like
Japanese ijime includes the global pattern of physical and verbal aggression plus forms shaped by classroom homogeneity: シカト (shikato, "ostracism, systematic ignoring"), social exclusion, and occasional physical acts. Comparative research describes the Japanese classroom as a stable, closed peer environment where a child marked as different faces isolation risk.3
The survey scale
Beyond the headline count, FY2024 recorded 128,859 violence cases, also a record (as of the FY2024 MEXT survey; confirm current figures with MEXT).2 The numbers establish one working assumption: no school can credibly claim bullying never happens there, so every parent should know the escalation path before needing it.
A documented Osaka case showed a school passing off a parent's requests without any systematic approach, prolonging the child's harm. Dated written reports with kept copies turn requests into a record the system must answer.4
The 2013 response framework
The Act on the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying (Act No. 71 of 2013) places prevention, early detection, and response duties on the national government, local governments, school establishers, schools, and teachers.1 Children must not bully; adults must organize against it.1
The school's mandated organization
Each school must maintain a permanent organization at the center of its anti-bullying work, drawing in external professionals such as lawyers, doctors, or retired police officers as needed.5 Minor signs, suspicions, and consultations must be shared with that body rather than handled by individual teachers alone, and responses run through it.5
The homeroom teacher is the first contact, but the Act routes the case to the standing body. Ask for the organization by name and confirm the report reached it.5
The escalation ladder
The ladder runs from homeroom-teacher first response to principal escalation, then to board-and-municipality involvement for serious cases, with family consultation throughout.15 Cases meeting the 重大事態 (jūdai jitai, "serious situation triggering formal investigation") threshold trigger formal investigation machinery with external membership.15
Third-party committees can review a school's handling afterward. In the Osaka case, a committee recognized sustained discriminatory bullying, faulted the school's unsystematic response, and separately found the case below the serious-situation threshold.4 External review and formal thresholds are different tools; a family may need both.
Tokyo's education consultation center runs a 24/7 free bullying hotline at 0120-53-8288 in Japanese, with interpreter support on Friday afternoons for foreign-student guidance (standing service; confirm current hours with the center).6 An outside line creates a parallel record when the school channel stalls.
Foreign-family vulnerability
The strategy framework is the same in principle, but the language-and-cultural barrier complicates engagement.7 That sentence understates the documented gap, so here it is plainly.
The documented gap
A 2024 survey found 68% of 448 mixed-background respondents had experienced bullying or discrimination (as of the 2024 survey; confirm current findings with the researchers).8 Qualitative research records being bullied as "gaijin" as a motive for international-school moves, and names peer relations and friendlessness among foreign children's reasons for non-attendance.7
The Osaka case makes the mechanism concrete. A fifth-grader whose father is a foreigner was told to "go home," called "foreigner" into sixth grade, and wrote of wanting to die in a graduation-text draft that a teacher crossed out with a large X before ordering a rewrite.4 The committee recognized bullying across 2019–2020 and ruled the school's response inadequate.4
For a foreign family, three frictions stack: the child may be marked as different sooner, the parents may lack the language to press the school, and the school may lack practice with discrimination-pattern cases. Naming a bilingual supporter early (a counselor, an NPO contact, a trusted teacher) is preparation, not pessimism.
When bullying becomes a legal matter
This section describes procedures. It does not advise any family's case; for that, consult a licensed bengoshi.
Police collaboration and criminal complaints
Where a case should be processed as a criminal act, the school must respond in collaboration with the relevant police station.1 Where life, person, or property is at risk, the statutory serious-situation provisions apply.1 The school's collaboration duty runs alongside the family's own right to file a criminal complaint for serious physical bullying through the police; one does not replace the other.
A bengoshi frames what the police need documented and what the school owes procedurally. Allegations made without counsel are harder to steer once filed.
Protective orders and bengoshi consultation
In extreme cases, families pursue family-court protective orders. That route runs through legal counsel, not through the school.
Its availability and shape depend on the facts only a lawyer can assess. For the school track (counseling, classroom measures, board escalation), the school counselor and the board of education are the addresses. For the legal track (protective orders, criminal complaints), the bengoshi is.
The futoko link
Bullying-induced 不登校 (futōkō, "school non-attendance of 30+ days for non-health, non-financial reasons") is a major public-school pattern.9 FY2024 non-attendance reached 353,970, a twelfth straight record, with low motivation, friend trouble, and rhythm disruption prominent (as of the FY2024 MEXT survey; confirm current figures with MEXT).2
Options after withdrawal include school counseling, home arrangements, and free schools, alternative schools operating on freedom-and-individuality principles since the 1980s.9 Attitudes have shifted from the pre-1992 illness framing to the neutral futoko term adopted in 1997, and the free-school movement dates to the 1980s.9
Counseling placements, free-school enrollment, and home arrangements take weeks to organize. Mapping the options while the child still attends beats crisis enrollment after withdrawal.9
Good to know
Report in writing and keep copies from the first meeting
Verbal reports evaporate; dated copies accumulate. Every meeting, every promise, every deadline goes on paper kept at home.4
Name the school's anti-bullying organization, not just the teacher
Individual teachers rotate, transfer, and forget. The standing body persists, and the Act requires the case to live there.5
Use the 24-hour hotline when the school channel stalls
The Tokyo hotline at 0120-53-8288 runs around the clock free of charge in Japanese (standing service; confirm current hours with the center). Outside business hours or outside the school's goodwill, it is the fastest parallel record available.6
Prepare for the futoko conversation before it becomes urgent
Know the nearest counseling contact and one free-school option by name. If attendance collapses, the family acts instead of searching.9
Get legal advice before alleging a crime, not after
Consult a bengoshi first when physical harm or threats are involved. Procedure protects families who enter it prepared.