Aren’t the kids in this photo just so damn cute? Ever wondered why? Well, according to this Asahi news article there is a disturbing new trend among young children going for professional hair removal treatments. One mother says she caught her elementary age daughter accidentally cut herself after trying to remove unwanted hair with a pair of scissors, and had no choice but to take her to get treatment. Some of the excuses given: “my friends say I’m too hairy”, “I worry about the way others perceive me” and “the boys were making fun of me”.
While it’s obviously something the mother should have been able to explain without taking her to the hair removal clinic, this only demonstrates the susceptibility of Japanese kids to school bullying. Suicides even in elementary school are disturbingly high.
One hair removal clinic chain in southern Japan reports it performed over 400 procedures on children aged from 3 to 18, though I suspect the majority of those were on high school ages. Still, the fact that someone took their 3 year old child to get hair removal treatment should be grounds for a child abuse case.
