On September 17th, two parents and their children in Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, filed a human rights complaint with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, claiming that their opinions and those of their guardians were not respected and were harmed during school counselling sessions for their children with disabilities.
On September 13th, the plaintiffs and the government signed a settlement agreement in a lawsuit over forced sterilization under the old Eugenic Protection Law. Final adjustments were being made on the government’s payment of 15 million yen in compensation to any individual who underwent the surgery. Lawsuits currently underway in various regions have been gradually entering settlement procedures, and the settlement will take place about six years and seven months after the first lawsuit was filed in 2018.
The agreement covers 19 plaintiffs of pending lawsuits across the country.
The Tokyo Shimbun reported that although Shinjiro Koizumi is considered one of the “favorite” candidates due to his high name recognition and ability to communicate, there are strong concerns about his ability to answer questions as prime minister, as he has made some unique statements at international conferences, such as “I will tackle climate change in a sexy way.” At the press conference that day, Koizumi was asked, “Doesn’t your intellectual level seem low?”
A survey by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare found that 761 people with disabilities suffered abuse at work, such as unpaid wages and verbal abuse, last year, an increase of 105 from the previous year. This is thought to be due to the recovery of economic activity from COVID-19, which has increased employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
Japan won its first Paralympic gold medal in wheelchair rugby Monday after seeing off the United States 48-41 in Paris, with the nation adding two badminton gold on the day to make it five total at the ongoing games.
The Chunichi Shimbun reported that on August 30th, businessman Hiroyuki Nishimura (47), known as “Hiroyuki”, updated his X (formerly Twitter), giving his personal opinion regarding Nippon Television’s “24-hour TV”, which began its broadcast on August 31st.
Posting about the Paralympics, “Hiroyuki” said:
“If they’re going to deal with people with disabilities on 24-hour TV, they should broadcast the Paralympics…”, referring to the Paris Paralympics that began on the 28th.
Typhoon 10 is on its way and Japan’s Paralympic Team is in Paris!
In lawsuits still ongoing across the country over people who were forced to undergo sterilization under the old Eugenic Protection Law, the government has presented the defense team with a basic settlement proposal that includes paying 15 million yen in compensation to each plaintiff. The government and the defense team are making final adjustments and are expected to reach a formal basic agreement soon.
Currently, over 14,000 people in Japan are waiting for a kidney transplant — by far the largest group when classified according to organ — with an average waiting period of 14 years and nine months. That compares with an average wait time of three to five years among 90,000 patients in need of kidney transplants in the United States.
A nationwide survey of local governments by Kyodo News on the 13th revealed that 329 workplaces where disabled people could gain skills and knowledge while working were closed nationwide between March and July of this year, resulting in at least 5,000 disabled people who worked there being fired or quitting. The highest number of disabled people ever fired in a year was about 4,000. Although this includes retirees, this is an unprecedented number in just five months.
On the 10th, three staff members from the Prefectural Center for the Hearing Impaired drove around the homes of hearing-impaired people living in the city, where a seismic intensity of 6-low was observed in the earthquake on the 8th. The staff members used sign language to ask about damage caused by the earthquake and their concerns. Mitsuhira Kazuo, director of the Prefectural Center for the Deaf, who conducted the survey, said, “We don’t know when the next big earthquake will occur, so we went there to listen in detail. We would like to hear the honest feelings of disabled people in other areas of the prefecture as well.”
Barrier Free Japan