Ah yes, a nice little story from the dark side of Japan...

from: http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/face/index.html

.....

Sweet life drained from brothel worker's little honey

By Ryann Connell
Staff Writer

October 27, 2002


   Yumiko Iijima's life was anything but a taste of honey. Her death, though, very nearly was. And though she has managed to survive, her 11-year-old daughter was not so lucky, as Shukan Shincho (10/31) notes.

Iijima was arrested Oct. 17 for failing in her parental responsibilities and allowing her daughter to starve to death. The child was found late on the night of Sept. 23 after residents of a housing estate where the mother and daughter lived in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, complained of an unbearable reek.

"We found the daughter's body in a six tatami mat room. It was lying face-up on a futon and covered in a blanket," a high-ranking officer from the Kurashiki Police Station tells Shukan Shincho. "Parts of her body had already rotted and turned black as though they were burned and maggots were crawling all over her body. The maggots had even made their way into her sunken eye sockets. The smell of the room was so bad, it was almost impossible to breathe."

Sitting next to the little girl's body was her mother, 50-year-old Iijima.

"She was barely alive, too. She was saying things that made no sense. There was a bottle near her that contained some honey. That was the only food in the entire apartment," the officer says.

Iijima was promptly hospitalized, but was so stricken by malnourishment that she was unable to speak comprehensibly until early October.

"At first she seemed a bit reluctant to talk about what had happened, but then she told us that she thought she'd die, too. She told us she had no money and couldn't buy any food. Her and her daughter were living off honey they rationed. They hadn't registered with the local government that they were living there. The little girl wasn't attending school, either," an investigation source tells Shukan Shincho.

Iijima was born in Kanagawa Prefecture.

"She went to work for an ordinary company after graduating from high school. She shacked up with a number of guys, and her parents were really mad at her for doing so," the officer says. "Nobody knows who the dead girl's father was. Iijima did have the girl looked after at a home in Chigasaki (Kanagawa Prefecture)."

Down on her luck, Iijima worked at a number of sex joints in the Kanto Region up until several years ago.

"After that, she ended up as a brothel receptionist in Gifu. Some guy told her he'd find a job for her in Okayama, so she went there with him, taking her daughter out of the home in May this year. That's how they ended up in Kurashiki," the officer tells Shukan Shincho. "Soon after arriving, the guy who invited her there vanished. Iijima and her daughter were left roaming the streets."

Enter the 79-year-old man who lived in the apartment were Iijima and her daughter were discovered late last month.

"He was known as a smoothie who always tried to chat up the women living in the estate, so I'd guess it was him who spoke to Iijima first. He was senile and in poor health, but he did get the money from his old age pension," the investigation officer tells Shukan Shincho. "Iijima and her daughter soon hooked up with the old man, promising to look after him if he'd let them live in his apartment."

The arrangement worked for a while, but in July the elderly benefactor was hospitalized. Iijima and her daughter holed up in his apartment and shut themselves off from the rest of the world. Iijima didn't work and she never sought aid from the government.

"She told us she was looking after the place and she and her daughter never went outside. She was delighted when somebody gave her some rice, telling them she had been 'saved,'" a resident of the housing estate where Iijima stayed tells Shukan Shincho. "But then, toward the middle of September, we never heard a word from the apartment where she was staying and this vile smell as though some food had gone rotten began to ooze out of the place. I used any number of deodorizers, but couldn't get rid of the stench. I finally managed to overcome the smell by burning incense throughout my home."

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Some people's minds are like cement: all mixed up and permanently set...

That's sick. I pity the little girl.



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"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Thoreau

Things like this happen all over the world, not just in Japan

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See I'm the king of the swingers, the Jungle V.I.P.,
But I've reached the top and had to stop,
And that's what's
botherin' me.

Wonderful, terrific. I just come home after an incredibly awful day of school and see this.
Charming

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"When your back is against the wall the only thing to do is to turn around and fight" - John Major
Solar Knowledge|Solar Quiz|Image Gallery|Fribbles!|blork?|
[This Message has been edited by a garden troll]

Interesting topic there, andrew.

-J

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"Being a Mac user is like being a Navy Seal: a small, elite group of people with access to the most sophisticated technology in the world, who everyone calls on to get the really tough jobs done quickly and efficiently."

One of those candidates for the Darwin Award, if it wasn't the girl who had died. The possibiity existed for her to get goverenment or local help, but no one cared, even after the stench.

It sounds like one of those places that needs mowed down with a tank.

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Ivanova: "I can only conclude that I am paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate."

That's rather callous....

Interesting story, andrew.

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In Nomeni Patri Et Fili Spiritus Sancti
Too many Vidmasters not enough Style.
Clicky Clickerton • EVula, eh? • define FUBAR • think geek.

I suppose. It's just that too many people ignor bad things happening in their own "back yard" I this case they did everything you see in the movies where someone is being chased and all the people shut and lock their doors.

In this case what would you have done? The majority of us would have done something I think.



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Ivanova: "I can only conclude that I am paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate."