Yuzuru Yokoyama

Japan

In Japan, there was a long history to intern the people with Hansen's disease at the national medical institution. Once those who were diagnosed as a Hansen's disease patient, they had been put into the national Hansen's disease treatment institution. And those patients had never been allowed to discharge from the institution forever. Most of those patients had been forced to the labor in order to take care of themselves. Once a male patient decided to get married, he was forced to sterilize. In the case of a female patient, she was forced to have abortion if she got pregnant. This inhumanitarian practice has started from the beginning of the 20th century and has continued until about 11 years ago. This kind of human rights abuse was regulated under the law of the Hansen's Disease Prevention. There were 13 national Hansen's Disease Treatment Institutions and two private Hansen's Disease Treatment Clinics. About 2800 former Hansen's Disease Patients are now living in the national Hansen's disease treatment institution now. However, the average age of those patients are nearly 80 years old. Many of them are still suffering from the discrimination and prejudice by the Japanese society. In addition, those people are suffering from the social isolation and the declination of the health condition. In order to secure their human rights, the government should make an effort to provide the physical care and medical care as well.

Hansen's disease patients have organized their resident's association and they are making an effort to establish Hansen's Disease Problem Fundamental Law in order to protect their human rights and secure their social and medical security.

It is crucial to establish the Hansen's Disease Fundamental Law as soon as possible since the former Hansen's Disease Patients have been abused their human rights. This law proposes three major issues. (1) The Japanese government must admit their mistakes to violate the human rights of Hansen's Disease Patients in the past (discrimination and quarantine).(2) The Japanese government makes sure to secure the social and medical security of the Hansen's Disease Patients. (3) The Japanese government must open the Hansen's Disease medical facilities to the public.

I would like to make recommendations that the Japanese government should make an extra effort to protect and promote human rights of the former Hansen's Disease Patients in terms of social and medical security. In addition, the Japanese government should also make an effort to establish the anti-discrimination law for people with any kind of disability and illness as soon as possible.      

(The author is Professor of the School of Social Welfare, Hokusei Gakuen University in Sapporo, Japan.)