The final episode of NHK’s TV programme on minorities ‘Baribara’ will air on NHK E on Thursday March 6th 2024 at 20:00PM. It will look back on the 15 years of the programme covering the issues concerning minority groups in Japan.
On January 7th, it was announced on the official website that NHK Educational TV’s barrier-free variety show “Baribara” (broadcast on Thursdays 8pm) will end in March.
The production team of the show announced, “Baribara, which has been broadcast with the aim of eliminating ‘barriers’ for ‘all minorities who have difficulty living’, will end in March this year.”
The NHK TV concerns Mirai (Miku, Marika Ito) who joins a TV station because she admires their drama production, and one day, her project is accepted for the first time. Her joy is short-lived, however, when her programming manager Fujitani (Satoshi Hashimoto) tells her to change the character of her main character to a person with a disability in a special drama for “Diversity Month.” Although she is confused, she begins to interview, during which she meets Haru (Yui Wago), a high school student in a wheelchair. She feels a strange attraction towards Haru, but she rejects her, saying, “She doesn’t want her disability to be taken advantage of.”
People with disabilities continue to be neglected and marginalised, with fewer educational opportunities, poorer health outcomes, lower levels of employment, and higher rates of poverty. Discrimination is pervasive. It harms, hurts, and creates prejudices. The COVID-19 pandemic has only made the situation worse, and the United Nations 2030 Agenda calls for no one to be left behind. As the world reopens, things must fundamentally change.
When a restaurant that employs people with disabilities was interviewed on Itoham’s official YouTube channel, the company instructed to cut out the part of the interview with a disabled employee. The controversy stems from a post by Hiromichi Shizume, a TV producer and writer in charge of production and appearances for the channel’s project, which has sparked controversy over Itoham’s response to the situation.
According to a petition claiming a violation of human rights brought to the Kyoto Bar Association in early December, even though the Kyoto police told news outlets that the family members had refused to release the names, news organizations did so anyway. Some argue the release of victims’ names is vital in reporting major criminal cases or accidents accurately and provides valuable lessons for society.
“[A]s of October 27th, neither ‘Japan Foward’ – the online English language version of The Sankei Shimbun or ‘The Japan News’ – a print &! online edition of The Yomiuri Shimbun, has not translated this story for native readers of English. The Asahi Shinbun and The Mainichi Shimbun has not reported the story either in Japanese or English, as of October 27th.”
“With the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games fast approaching, Japanese broadcaster NHK has revealed a “four pledge” goal to provide their audience with high-quality services that would help shape the future of the public media of 2020 and beyond.”
“Projects to rewrite newspaper articles, government documents and even manga normally too difficult for persons with mental disabilities to understand. “Slow Communication” based in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo, which publishes easy-to-understand Japanese news articles on its website. All the sentences are short and the Chinese characters come with smaller kana, or syllabic characters, to assist with pronunciation.”
“When I interviewed people with disabilities, I was often told, ‘We’re not saints. I want you to portray [Shikano] as an ordinary man.’”
Barrier Free Japan