When you find criticism of your country disturbing, the best way to dismiss it is to find a flaw in the critique and use it to justify dismissing the rest of the evidence as well. Sometimes it works, but only if people don't really do their homework.
Take, for example, sukūru sekuhara, which means "school sexual harassment" and refers to academic staff acting lewdly toward their students. Such behavior ranges from inappropriate touching and sexual assault to photographing students naked.
According to the education ministry, 205 faculty members at public schools were disciplined or fired for such offenses in fiscal year 2013, the most recent year statistics have been made public. It's the first time since the survey began in 1977 that the figure has topped 200. It has hovered around 150 for the past decade.
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