Victims of Japan's 'eugenics' programme complain the compensation offered is not enough (AFP Photo/Toshifumi KITAMURA) |
Thousands of Japanese people -- some as young as nine -- forcibly sterilised under now-defunct eugenics laws, will receive government compensation after lawmakers passed historic legislation on Wednesday.
Following
the unanimous vote, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe voiced "sincere regret"
and said the government "apologised wholeheartedly" over the
notorious policy.
Some 16,500
mentally disabled people were sterilised without their consent under the law
that remained in force until 1996, according to health ministry data.
Each victim
will receive 3.2 million yen ($29,000) under the measures passed on Wednesday
-- an amount derided by campaigners as "failing to meet the
seriousness" of the damage suffered.
The issue
hit the headlines last year after a Japanese woman, now in her 60s, sued the
government over a sterilisation operation carried out in 1972 after she was
diagnosed with a mental disability.
Lawyers and
campaigners have long criticised the government and parliament for failing to
compensate victims long after the eugenics law was abandoned in 1996.
About 20
victims have so far filed lawsuits across the country seeking compensation of
up to 38 million yen.
The first
verdict over the issue will be announced on May 28, and plaintiffs' lawyers
have vowed to seek compensation they say matches the gravity of the harm
suffered.
"It is
understandable that lawmakers have been hurrying to enact the law to pay
one-off compensation to ageing victims," lawyers said in a statement
before the legislation was passed.
But without
sufficient compensation, it is not a "true solution to the issue,"
they charged.
Tokyo has
pledged to pay the compensation "swiftly" but the government will
likely continue to battle in court against victims claiming more.
Germany and
Sweden had similar eugenics laws and governments there have also apologised and
paid compensation to the victims.
Under
Japan's law, some leprosy patients were also forced into abortions under
policies that forbade them from having children.
In 2005, a
Japanese court for the first time ordered the state to pay damages to a former leprosy
sufferer affected by this law.
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