As Japan’s Supreme Court Hears Appeal Over Forced Sterilization, the Victims Speak

By Barrier Free Japan with extract from Jiji via Nippon.com

May 29 2024

JAPAN – The Japanese Supreme Court’s Grand Bench held an appeal hearing Wednesday on five damages lawsuits filed against the government over forced sterilization under the now-defunct eugenic protection law, in which victims sought a decision giving them relief.

From 1948 to 1996, Japan’s Eugenic Protection Law required the sterilization of people with intellectual disabilities, mental illness or hereditary disorders to prevent the births of “inferior” offspring. 

Approximately 25,000 people with disabilities were sterilized under the Eugenic Protection Law, and some 16,500 people with disabilities were operated on without their consent, according to the Health Ministry and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.

The Grand Bench, presided over by Chief Justice Saburo Tokura, is expected to hand down a unified ruling on the suits as early as this summer. The focus is on whether the 20-year statute of limitations for damages claims applies to the cases involving discrimination and human rights violations stemming from national policy.

“Please write a judgment that gives relief to the lives of the victims,” an 81-year-old male plaintiff from Tokyo using the pseudonym Saburo Kita, who was forced to undergo sterilization at the age of 14, said at the hearing.

“My life has been profoundly disrupted,” Kita said. “I have suffered for 67 years.”

A deaf plaintiff from Osaka, western Japan, using the pseudonym Hanako Nomura, said in sign language that she was subjected to sterilization without her knowledge. She argued that the eugenic protection law was discriminatory against people with disabilities, and that she wants to live a happy life where she can raise children.

Junko Iizuka (a pseudonym), from Miyagi Prefecture, was forced to undergo forced sterilization surgery when she was sixteen years old. She divorced for not being able to have a child, and such sorrow triggered mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.