A 35-year-old man in Matsusaka, Mie prefecture, Japan, was arrested on June 18 for confining his partner’s 5-year-old daughter inside a garbage bin on May 12 around 6:30 p.m. local time [1, 2, 3].
The girl was held for about five minutes inside the bin at the partner’s home. She was uninjured, according to the police report [1, 2, 3]. The man admitted to the charges, saying the act was intended as "discipline" or "管教" in Japanese [1, 2, 3].
Authorities first learned of the incident on May 20 when a child welfare center was notified. The center reported the case to police and took protective custody of the girl’s older sister [1, 2, 3]. According to later reports, the victim girl herself is now also under protective care by child welfare services [3].
The suspect remains in police custody as investigators continue their inquiry. The protective custody measures indicate efforts to safeguard the children's welfare.
The timeline began on May 12 with the confinement event at about 6:30 p.m. The child welfare center was alerted and involved law enforcement on May 20. The arrest came nearly a month later, on June 18. Most recently today, on June 20, child welfare authorities provided protective custody to both the victim girl and her older sister [1, 2, 3].
