Osaka District Court rules woman with intellectual disabilities to be awarded damages for sexual abuse

Written with extracts from The Mainichi Shimbun

March 29th 2018

A 20-year-old woman with intellectual disabilities using Sakai City’s Akebono-koen facility “Sakai Akebono-en” described how she was told that she was “married” to a male official (31) and how she was sexually abused, the Sakai branch of the Osaka District Court ordered payment of a total of 1.65 million yen in a court ruling requesting that welfare corporations and male employees also pay out for damages of 4.4 million yen.

Although the staff side denied sexual activity, the judge Kenji Nakagakiuchi made the following judgment, “The root portion of women’s statements can be trusted.” It was pointed out that the staff acted as if they had the intention of marrying her for the purposes of having to sex contrary to the disabled abuse prevention law stipulating respect for the dignity of persons with disabilities. In addition, the company responsible for employers’ responsibility was also recognized as having sex acts in the facility during night shift work.

According to the ruling, male officials lied whilst married to women from 2011 and committed sex acts ten times.

The social welfare corporation “Sakai Akebono Welfare Association” said “We have not confirmed the content of the judgment and can not comment.”