0.2% of Japan’s 47 prefectural assemblies and 20 cabinet city council are disabled persons

Extracts from The Mainichi Shimbun

Sunday 24th December 2017

The Mainichi Shimbun surveyed the number of local councilors with disabilities at the 47 prefectural parliaments and 20 cabinet city councils and found out that there were 7 wheelchair users and there was 1 blind person. Regarding the number of parliamentarians of persons with disabilities, there is no official data, and it is possible that some lawmakers have internal disabilities, but seems that the advancement of the disabled to parliament is extremely limited.

Local councilors that use wheelchairs are to be found in Hyogo, Fukuoka Prefecture and one in each city, Saitama, Shizuoka, Nagoya, Kobe, Kumamoto. Among them, Hyogo, Fukuoka prefectural assembly and Shizuoka City Municipal Council have used wheelchairs on a daily basis due to illness and old age. One council member who is blind is serving in Niigata city. No councilmember is hearing impaired.

On the other hand, according to the White Paper on Disabled Persons of the 2017 version, about 3.1% of the population are physically handicapped, such as vision, hearing, and physical disability.

About 6.7%, are  said to have some disability (including mental illness and intellectual disabilities) , and it can be said that the proportion in the Congress is far below the proportion of people with disabilities to the population.