Forced Sterilization of People with Disabilities in Hokkaido: A Brief Timeline

By Barrier Free Japan

June 29 2023

JAPAN – Between 1948 and 1996, Japan’s eugenics law authorized the sterilization of people with intellectual disabilities, mental illnesses or hereditary disorders to prevent the birth of “inferior” offspring.

About 25,000 people with disabilities were sterilized under the law, including around 16,500 who were operated on without their consent, according to government data.

After neglecting the issue for years, Japan’s parliament enacted legislation in April 2019 to pay 3.2 million yen in state compensation to each person who underwent forced sterilization, irrespective of whether they were believed to have agreed to undergo surgery or not. The forced sterilization policy was scrapped in 1996, when the Eugenic Protection Law was revised and renamed the Maternal Health Law.

A number of the court cases were filed and heard in the Sapporo District Court in Hokkaido.

June 28 2018

‘Hokkaido couple sue over forced sterilization, coerced abortion’

SAPPORO  –  Two more lawsuits were filed against the central government on June 28 over forced sterilization, including one by a couple who say the wife was also coerced into having an abortion.

The husband, 81, and his wife, 75, filed the lawsuit at the Sapporo District Court, seeking 11 million yen ($100,000) each in compensation.The wife, who has an intellectual disability, was forced to undergo a sterilization operation under the postwar Eugenic Protection Law. But they are also seeking compensation for the abortion that was carried out in 1981 when she was pregnant with their first child. Relatives pressured the wife, then 38, to undergo the abortion because they would be unable to provide the support needed to raise the child.

In June 1981, the husband, who was 44 at the time, signed the document that gave his consent to the abortion and forced sterilization against his will, according to the lawsuit.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the husband’s consent was invalid because it was based on an unconstitutional law. The husband said he regrets signing the document and has since felt sorry for his wife, who had been looking forward to being a mother. He also said he feels guilty about being on the side of victimizer when he signed the consent form. The plaintiffs also said it was illegal for the government to fail to provide relief to the couple after taking away any opportunity they had of bearing and raising a child.

The Hokkaido government said it does not have records of the woman’s procedure, but lawyers plan to ask the husband to testify in court about how his wife was forced to undergo the abortion and sterilization.

He and his wife are expected to explain the sadness and pain they still feel about the abortion.

Their lawsuit is the first filed by a couple over the forced sterilization policy.

So far, seven plaintiffs have filed such lawsuits against the government.

When lawsuits were filed at three district courts on May 17 2018, the couple initially considered joining those plaintiffs. However, after consulting with lawyers, the couple decided to wait until compensation for the abortion was also included in the lawsuit. The other lawsuit on June 28 was submitted to the Kumamoto District Court by Kazumi Watanabe, a 73-year-old man with osteoarthritis, the first litigation filed in western Japan. He says various health problems from the forced sterilization operation performed when he was 10 or 11 have continued to plague him, including fragile bones that easily fracture. One doctor told him he had a hormonal imbalance. Watanabe is seeking 33 million yen in compensation on the grounds the forced sterilization violated his basic human rights.

September 25 2018

‘Sapporo district court ruling on forced sterilization case makes courtroom accessible’

SAPPORO – The Sapporo District Court ruling on a case to decide whether Kikuo Kojima (77) of Sapporo City is due damages on the grounds that sterilization was forced under the former eugenic protection law (1948-96) made the public gallery in the courtroom accessible for the hearings on the 25th. More than half – some reports say 60% – of the seats in the court room were allocated to accommodate the disabled people attending , to allow a caretaker with medical equipment, as well as sign language interpreters to accompany them.

The Hokkaido Defense Agency and DPI (Disabled Person International) Hokkaido Block Meeting received a request form submitted on the basis of Disability Discrimination Resolution Law seeking “reasonable consideration” to the country etc, the district court responded with a written document on 14th.

Mr. Masaki Nishimura, Vice-Chairperson of the DPI Japan Congress, said, “It is unusual for the court to take consideration of the soft aspect so far and spread across the country.”

February 5 2021

‘Japan court dismisses forced sterilization suit citing lack of evidence for surgery’

SAPPORO — A court in this north Japan city has dismissed a couple’s suit for the national government to pay 22 million yen (about $208,400) in damages over forced sterilization and an abortion the wife endured under the now-defunct eugenic protection law (1948-1996), citing no evidence of the surgery.

The ruling, handed down by the Sapporo District Court on Feb. 4, is the nation’s first decision of its kind in which the court did not acknowledge surgery claimed to have been performed under the notorious law.

The lawsuit was filed in June 2018 by a 77-year-old woman living in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost prefecture, and her husband, who passed away in August 2019 at 82.

In rejecting the suit, the district court stated that it could not evidentially confirm forced sterilization based on the eugenic protection law, and therefore did not reach a point of deciding if the law was unconstitutional.

In all, 25 plaintiffs have filed 13 similar lawsuits with nine district courts and their branches across Japan, and the latest ruling is the fifth delivered in the country.

The ruling acknowledged that the woman, who is believed to have developed an intellectual disability due to a febrile illness contracted in early childhood, became pregnant in 1981, about four years after her marriage, and underwent an abortion later the same year.

However, the ruling said, “The possibility that she had the abortion due to economic reasons cannot be ruled out,” and stated it cannot be recognized that she was forced to have the surgery in accordance with the law. With regard to forced sterilization, the court said, “There is not enough evidence, such as a doctor’s opinion and photographs of surgery scars, to recognize that she underwent the surgery.”

In filing the suit, the couple became the first plaintiffs in the country to claim damages from an abortion in relation to the old law. After the husband died, his plaintiff status was inherited by parties including his nephew, now 59. 

“Due in part to kin’s opposition to the child’s delivery, the husband had no choice but to sign his consent for the surgery, and the woman was forced to undergo both an abortion and forced sterilization,” the plaintiffs claimed. However, the letter of consent does not exist today.

Following the court decision, the plaintiffs’ lawyers indicated that they will appeal. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare released a statement saying, “We understand that the state’s claim has been recognized.”

In related developments, district courts in Sendai, Osaka and Sapporo turned down compensation claims from similar lawsuits in rulings delivered in May 2019, November 2020 and Jan. 15 this year, respectively. But all of these courts declared the eugenic protection law unconstitutional.

The Tokyo District Court, meanwhile, dismissed a similar suit in June 2020 without deciding on the same law’s constitutionality. All four rulings rejected compensation claims for reasons including the expiration of the statute of limitations, in which the right to demand compensation expires 20 years from the time of an unlawful act.

January 15 2021

‘Japanese court rules defunct eugenics law unconstitutional but denies damages’

SAPPORO — A Japanese court on Friday ruled as unconstitutional the now-defunct eugenics protection law that mandated the government stop people with disabilities from having children, but it rejected a claim for damages sought by a man in northern Japan.

Kikuo Kojima, a 79-year-old from the city of Sapporo, is the first such plaintiff to have disclosed his name. He had filed a damages suit seeking 11 million yen ($100,000) for being sterilized against his will under the obsolete law, but the Sapporo District Court rejected his claim.

In handing down the ruling, Presiding Judge Takashi Hirose said there is no room to “justify” the law that infringed on a person’s decision regarding whether to bear or raise a child.

It was the third ruling to declare the obsolete law unconstitutional, following those of the Sendai District Court in May 2019 and the Osaka District Court in November.

Along with the Sendai and Osaka courts, the Sapporo district court also rejected the plaintiffs’ demand for compensation, citing the statute of limitations that expired 20 years after the surgery.

Friday’s ruling was the fourth in a series of similar lawsuits regarding the forced sterilization of people with intellectual disabilities filed with nine district courts and their branches across Japan.

“I will not give up until I win the case,” Kojima, who filed the lawsuit in 2018, said in a press conference after the ruling. His defense team plans to appeal the decision.

Kojima underwent surgery around 1960 when he was aged about 19 at a hospital in Sapporo on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido after being suddenly taken away by police, according to the ruling and other sources.

He had argued that he was deprived of the right to decide to have children and that the government was lax in supporting the recovery of those subjected to surgery under the law.

June 21 2023

‘Disabled Resident of Hokkaido Care Facility “felt coerced” into being Sterilized’

HOKKAIDO  – On June 21, an interview with the Hokkaido prefectural government revealed that a person with a mental disability who wished to get married or live together at a group home run by Asunaro Fukushikai, a social welfare corporation in Esashi, Hokkaido (Hidetoshi Higuchi, president), stated that he “felt as if he was forced to do so” when asked by the prefectural government about the sterilization procedures being performed on him.

According to the person in charge of the investigation, the person who testified that he felt coerced was a disabled person who had undergone the procedure before 2006. The fact that he decided to undergo the treatment after prolonged contact with the facility staff and that the facility explained to him that he had no choice but to undergo the treatment was not confirmed, and the Hokkaido government determined that he ultimately made the decision of his own volition.

The inadequacy of the records and the uncertainty of the person’s testimony highlighted the difficulty of such investigations.