Caritas launches 'Hikikomori' project

(ANSA) - Rome, November 18 - Catholic charity Caritas has launched in Rome a consciousness-raising campaign on the estimated 100,000 Italian male teens and young men between the ages of 14 and 30 who shut themselves up in their rooms and shun contact with the outside world apart from the Internet - a condition known by its Japanese name, hikikomori.
    The project, in partnership with the Hikikomori Italia association, is funded by taxpayers' contributions managed by Italian Bishops Conference CEI.
    Meetings will be set up at Rome parishes and Roman schools involved.
    "The goal is to study the phenomenon and involve the territorial actors involved in a direct manner in the life of the youth world," said Caritas.
    The term hikikomori has been in use for young Japanese social dropouts for some two decades.
    In Japan, hikikomori (lit. "pulling inward, being confined", i.e., "acute social withdrawal"; colloquially/adaptive translation: shut-in) are reclusive adolescents or adults who withdraw from society and seek extreme degrees of isolation and confinement.
    Hikikomori refers to both the phenomenon in general and the recluses themselves. Hikikomori have been described as loners or "modern-day hermits".
    Estimates suggest that half a million Japanese youths have become social recluses, as well as more than half a million middle-aged individuals.