Japan’s “Father of Disability Welfare”Applied for Forced Sterilization, Told 16-Year-Old Girl bed-wetting will stop

By Barrier Free Japan

October 5 2026

Otsu, Shiga Prefecture – It has been discovered through research that Omi Gakuen, a facility for children with intellectual disabilities in Shiga Prefecture founded by Kazuo Itoga, who was praised as the “father of disability welfare,” gave a 16-year-old girl with an intellectual disability the false explanation that “your bed-wetting will stop” when applying for her forced sterilization in 1952, during the period when the Eugenic Protection Law was in effect (1948–1996). The law permitted sterilization to be carried out through deception. This is the first time that the specific means of deception used in such a case have been identified in Shiga Prefecture.

The investigation was conducted by the Institute of Human Development (Otsu, Shiga Prefecture), a group of researchers in the field of social welfare, and Hidehiko Funabashi of the Ibaraki Prefecture branch of the National Association for the Study of Problems of People with Disabilities, who served as an assistant to the Diet’s verification panel.

The institute and Funabashi analyzed documents obtained through information-disclosure requests and lawsuits filed by the Kyoto Shimbun, including documents from the Shiga Prefecture Eugenic Protection Examination Committee, which determined whether sterilization procedures were permissible, as well as official documents from Omi Gakuen. This became possible after portions of the documents that had previously been blacked out were disclosed.

Itoga was born in Tottori in 1914 and graduated from the philosophy department of Kyoto Imperial University in 1938. He subsequently worked for the Shiga Prefectural Government.

After World War II, he became involved with the enormous social-welfare problems created by the war, particularly war orphans and children with intellectual disabilities. In November 1946, he joined with Taro Ikeda and Ichiji Tamura to establish Omi Gakuen (近江学園) in Otsu, Shiga. 

Itoga went on to establish or help establish a number of other facilities, most famously Biwako Gakuen, which opened in 1963 as a facility for children with severe physical and intellectual disabilities.