Japan Publishes Report Detailing 25,000 Forced Sterilizations On Citizens, Including 9-Year-Olds

Japan’s  Parliament on Monday published an extensive report on the nation’s Eugenic Protection Law, which for decades gave the government free rein to sterilize anyone with cognitive disabilities, mental illness or hereditary disorders to supposedly prevent “inferior” offspring, according to The Japan Times . 

The report revealed that under the law, which was in place for 48 years following World War II , 24,993 victims were sterilized, and around 16,000 of them did not consent to the procedure — including two 9-year-old children. 

Lawmakers unanimously adopted the legislation, a successor to Japan’s National Eugenic Law of 1940, at the time. According to The Japan Times, it aimed to combat a rising population amid post-war food shortages. A high school textbook from 1975 listed in the report said lawmakers sought to “improve” the “genetic predisposition of the entire public.”

The 9-year-old children mentioned in the report, a boy and a girl, were respectively sterilized in the early 1960s and 1970s.

The law was repealed in 1996, and new legislation in 2019 gave each victim $22,648 (¥3.2 million) in compensation, per the BBC . Thousands have since sued the government for more, however, pushing Parliament to launch a new probe in June 2020.

The 1,400-page report published Monday was damning.

It not only confirmed consent from adults wasn’t legally required and that a board at the prefectural government was allowed to examine and approve each case, but that numerous people were sterilized without that board ever being notified.

It also found the welfare ministry gave local authorities across Japan approval to lie to those with hereditary diseases, which included at least one victim who was told they were getting operated for appendicitis — only to be sterilized unwittingly instead.

“I would like the state not to shroud the issue in darkness but take our sufferings seriously soon,” an 80-year-old victim who was forcibly sterilized at 14 and who chose to remain anonymous said at a news conference, per The Japan Times.

Yasutaka Ichinokawa, a professor of medical sociology at the University of Tokyo, has been calling for an investigation since 1997. He told The Japan Times that the $22,000 compensation should be raised.

“The legislature should take responsibility in re-examining the compensation law and other means through which (the government) should extend relief to victims so that such a tragedy will never be repeated,” he told the outlet.

Japan isn’t the only government to sanction forced sterilizations. An estimated 60,000 Americans were sterilized in the 20th century because of eugenics laws.

Koji Niisato, one of the lawyers representing the Japanese victims, told The Japan Times that the report didn’t clarify “why the law was created, why it took 48 years to amend it or why the victims were not compensated.” This week’s disclosure is reportedly only the first of many to come.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said during a news conference Monday that the government “sincerely reflects on and deeply apologizes for” the pain it caused, per the Times. He also claimed Parliament will do its best to determine additional compensation for victims.