Junko Furuta: 44 Days of Torture

November 22, 2009 marked the 20 year anniversary of the abduction of Junko Furuta, a 16 year old Japanese girl who was raped and tortured for 44 days before finally dying. The boys who committed this crime are now free, and one of the boys changed his name after being released to Jo Kamisaku. He served only 8 years in a juvenile detention center for his role in the abduction and torture of Junko Furuta.

Junko Furuta was kidnapped and held in a house of one of the boys against her will. The house belonged to the parents of one of the boys, who knew what was happening, but did not try to help the girl or contact the police. Furuta was forced to call her own parents and tell them she had run away and was staying with a friend. The boys claimed that over 100 people knew that Junko was being held captive, but it was never confirmed whether they visited her at the house where she was kept, or if they participated in the assaults against this young girl.

According to Wikipedia, Furuta was repeatedly raped, beaten with metal rods and golf clubs, and was sodomized with foreign objects including a light bulb as well as had fireworks inserted into her anus, which the boys set off. She was forced to eat cockroaches and drink her own urine, forced her to masturbate, they cut her nipple with pliers, dropped dumbbells onto her stomach, and burned her with cigarettes and lighters. She was beaten with an iron barbell, had lighter fluid poured on her face, stomach, and limbs, and was set on fire. She died later that day of shock. On January 5, the killers hid her corpse in a 55-gallon drum filled with cement and dumped it on a tract of reclaimed land in Koto, Tokyo.

The boys identities were sealed by the court because of their age, even though they were tried as adults. They pled guilty to a reduced charge of "committing bodily injury that resulted in death", instead of the original charge of murder. Jo Kamisaku was released in August 1999, and nearly 5 years later he was arrested and served 7 years for assaulting an acquaintance and it is rumored he had been bragging about what he had done to Furuta.

I am deeply disturbed by this crime, and the punishment. How can a legal system sentence Kamisaku for such a short time and allow him to be released back into society? Does Junko Furuta's life mean so little? She was a young girl with hopes and dreams that will never be fulfilled. She never even had a chance at a life, with university, a career, marriage, or children. I cannot imagine the emptiness and rage her parents must feel knowing that the boys got off with a slap on the wrist, free to rape and torture more young girls. I am not even sure how this poor young lady survived 44 days, but my heart and tears go out to Furuta's family.

Sources:

Wikipedia: Murder of Junko Furuta, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junko_Furuta