KANAGAWA (TR) – Kanagawa Prefectural Police have arrested a 22-year-old Chinese intern for abandoning her newborn at a residence last month, a crime she says she committed due to fear of deportation, reports TBS News (Jan. 30).
At around 2:50 p.m. on December 19, Zhan Meijuan allegedly left the boy, wrapped in a blanket placed in a plastic bag, at the residence. After hearing the child cry, a female passerby found the child.
At the time of the discovery, the child was not in a life-threatening condition. He has since been moved to a nursery, according to the Kawasaki Police Station.
Zhan, who has been accused of abandonment by a guardian, admits to the allegations. “I will not be able to stay in Japan if [the existence of the child] is known by my company,” the suspect was quoted by police. “If I left the baby at a Japanese house, I thought they would raise him.”
Zhan became a person of interest for police after an examination of security camera footage. She carried the child, who weighed 3,392 grams and whose umbilical cord was still attached, by bicycle after giving birth at her residence nearby.
In August, Zhan came to Japan under the government-sponsored technical training program. She was working at a food processing plant in Kanagawa Prefecture, police said.
