Japan's parliament has released a disturbing report on the forced sterilization program that took place under a eugenics law that lasted until 1996. The 1,400-page report, which followed a three-year investigation, found that children as young as nine years old were sterilized to stop them ever having "inferior" children, the BBC reports. The report found that around 25,000 people were sterilized under the program, 16,000 of them forcibly. The program, which began in 1948, targeted people with disabilities, mental illness, or hereditary diseases.
The report said that in some cases, sterilization was a requirement for marriage, the Japan Times reports. Some people were tricked into having the surgery, with authorities telling them they were having routine operations like appendix removal. In 2019, the government authorized payments of around $22,000 to people who had been sterilized without consent. Some victims are suing for more. After the report's release Monday, an 80-year-old who had been sterilized at 14 said the government "had been doing terrible things by deceiving children." "I would like the state not to shroud the issue in darkness but take our sufferings seriously soon," they said.
Koji Niisato, co-head of a group of lawyers representing victims, praised the report for acknowledging the realities of the program but noted that it "did not reveal why the law was created, why it took 48 years to amend it or why the victims were not compensated." (More Japan stories.)
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