TOKYO – Toddlers at a nursery school, prison inmates and people with intellectual disabilities at a welfare home are allegedly victims of a series of unrelated but appalling abuse cases that emerged in Japan last week.

Three female teachers at a private nursery in Susono in Shizuoka prefecture allegedly abused one-year-old toddlers repeatedly, including by holding them upside down by their feet and hitting them on their heads. There were as many as 15 cases of abuse between June and August.