Japan’s top court says forced sterilisation unconstitutional

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court also ruled that a 20-year statute of limitations could not be applied to compensation claims in forced sterilisation cases.

Lawyers had argued that the statute had meant that some victims, especially those who had been sterilised without their knowledge, had learnt of the surgery too late to meet the legal deadline.

Forced sterilisations were most prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s, during the post-war baby boom. Many of those forcibly sterilised had physical and intellectual disabilities, mental health problems or chronic diseases such as leprosy.

Physical restraint, anaesthesia and even “deception” were allowed for these operations, according to a government notice in 1953.

“From here, I believe that the government must take a hard turn and move forward at full speed toward a full-fledged resolution,” said lawyer Yutaka Yoshiyama, who represented two of the plaintiffs.

He added that Japan has to date “turned a blind eye” to the “horrific harm” suffered by the victims and their family. Several of the victims who had sued the government died without receiving due reparations, he noted.

Under a law passed in 2019 following one of these cases, surviving victims can each receive 3.2 million yen ($19,800; £15,600). About 1,300 people have applied for this compensation and 1,100 have been awarded so far, reports say.

Still, for some of the victims, financial compensation can only go so far.

“When I found out I realized I could never be a mother… It broke my heart,” Yumi Suzuki, who was born with cerebral palsy and forcibly sterilised when she was just 12, told the BBC in a 2021 interview.

The 68-year-old is among the 11 plaintiffs whose cases were brought to the court on Wednesday.

“I [have] faced discrimination from when I was small but his was very different. It broke my heart.

“I don’t want money. I want people to know what happened to us. To make sure it never happens again. I want disabled people to be treated equally. We are not things. We are human beings.”