The award of damages to a 12-year-old girl diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder underlines the scale of the bullying problem in Japan's schools. Authorities are increasingly being held to account for inaction.

Bullying has long been an issue in Japanese schools, which already had a reputation for being stricter and more regimented than schools in Europe, but authorities here are having to cope with a sudden increase in cases - some so severe that they have been blamed for endangering the lives of the children involved. In the most extreme cases, bullying is also the cause of suicide amongst Japanese youth. On November 9, the Komatsu branch of the Kanazawa District Court, north of Tokyo, awarded the family of a 12-year-old girl 7.03 million yen (69,051 euros) in damages after she developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which the court deemed a result of abuse from her classmates. The family, whose name has not been made public as the girl is a minor, had sought 48 million yen in damages from the parents of nine other children at the school and the city of Kaga for failing to intervene.