Japanese government to investigate forced sterilization of intellectually disabled people

By Jonah McKeown

St. Louis, Mo., Jan 27, 2023 / 11:10 am

Japan’s health minister announced Jan. 20 that the government is launching an investigation into reports that a Japanese social service agency has been recommending sterilization to disabled people for years.

According to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, at least eight couples have undergone sterilization at the behest of Asunaro Social Welfare Service Corp., which runs a group care facility on the island of Hokkaido for people with intellectual disabilities. 

Local authorities uncovered this week that the social welfare corporation had been recommending that couples living on its premises who hoped to live together or marry get sterilized by way of therapies such as vasectomies for men and birth control rings for women. 

The corporation had been doing so for over two decades, the authorities found; the corporation has insisted that it only recommended the sterilizations and never forced them on any of the residents. 

Katsunobu Kato, Japan’s minister of health, labor, and welfare, issued a notice last week asking local authorities to immediately notify the ministry if they learn of an organization making sterilization a condition for people with disabilities to use its services. The notice was made public Jan. 23. 

Kato also announced that his ministry is planning to conduct research, starting in fiscal year 2023, into the marriages, pregnancies, childbirths, and child-rearing of people with disabilities to understand their realities better, Asahi Shimbun reported. 

“It is extremely important to implement appropriate support based on the wishes of persons with disabilities, including marriage, childbirth, and child-rearing,” Kato said.

According to UCA News, a Catholic news site focusing on Asia, Japan’s care homes for disabled people do not have provisions for child care and are designed for couples only, and do not address the needs of people under 18 years old.

Japan, for nearly half a century, had eugenics laws on the books that led to thousands of people with disabilities being sterilized. The laws took effect in 1948 and were not repealed until the 1990s. A Japanese district court just this week ordered settlements to be paid to a man and a woman who were both sterilized decades ago under the laws. 

In July 2016, an attacker entered a care home in Japan for persons with mental disabilities in Sagamihara, some 20 miles northwest of Yokohama, and stabbed 19 people to death. The dead ranged in age from 19 to 70, and another 25 people were wounded. 

Shortly after that attack, 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu, a former employee of the care center, turned himself in to local police and was arrested. Uematsu had written a letter to Japan’s Parliament in February advocating for euthanasia of persons with disabilities, saying it would be better if they were euthanized and “disappeared.”

Jonah McKeown is a staff writer and podcast producer for Catholic News Agency. He holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and has worked as a writer, as a producer for public radio, and as a videographer. He is based in St. Louis.