Every year, about 1,800 minors in Japan fall victim to crime through social media. Many are sexually abused by adults they’ve never met. How does this happen in ordinary life? It has been difficult to shed light on the issue. Based on several actual incidents, we used drama and documentary to show how a child becomes victim of sexual abuse. Six teenagers chosen by audition did work-shops with specialists from support groups, lawyers, and psychiatrists. They were asked how they would act in various dramatised situations that would affect the course of a child’s life. The production team then revised a drama script to reflect the feelings and opinions of the teenage actors and depicted that process in documentary form. The director was thrilled to see that the young performers portrayed emotions that diverged from or went beyond those that he had written into the script. These real voices of the girls and boys were incorporated into the documentary section. The project was inspired by the director’s elementaryschool- age son, who spent a lot of time on online games and made ‘friends’ there. In Japan reactions to incidents involving social media tend to be simplistic, such as simply barring kids from cellphones or video games. Do parents really understand where the line lies between safe and unsafe when it comes to their kids?
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