Sumiko Nishi has lived her life lamenting the surgery that she underwent more than six decades ago when she was only 14 and that she feels she was coerced into having. 

The 75-year-old resident of Hino, western Tokyo, in April told The Asahi Shimbun about her experience as a victim of forced sterilization under the former Eugenic Protection Law.

Nishi recently heard about a successful lawsuit against the government over its former eugenics law, which was in effect from 1948 to 1996, and plans to file her own. 

Because of discrimination, many victims of the law, including the successful plaintiff, have not disclosed their real names.

But Nishi decided to reveal her name and show her face and tell her story. 

By doing so, Nishi hopes that the government will “listen and respond to (my) anger and hatred and accept responsibility."

TOO YOUNG TO KNOW CONSEQUENCES

Nishi was born in Osaka Prefecture. When she was 6 months old, she was infected with measles and contracted cerebral palsy, which led to impairment of her hands and feet.

When she was 9, she entered a health care facility for disabled people in Osaka Prefecture.

She continued to rehabilitate there while studying. But her symptoms worsened, and she became unable to stand or even run a comb through her hair as her condition deteriorated. 

Her periods started when she was 14. Because she could not move her hands, she asked a nurse to change her sanitary product.

The nurse looked at her in disgust and told her, “You started menstruating again?” and “Why don’t you have your uterus removed?”

Nishi thought that not having a period would save her from having to undergo a difficult time.

She was urged by nurses to “have surgery to stop menstruating.” Her mother gave her consent.

Nishi did not understand what it meant, but she did have surgery--a hysterectomy.

After the operation was over, Nishi overheard the nurses saying, “It is great that Sumi-chan’s mother is understanding. I wish everyone was like that.”

When she was 19, Nishi read a book about the biology of the human body. She then realized the surgery has made her unable to give birth to a child.

“I was dazed and shocked,” she recalled.

Nishi said the facility “did not treat her like a real person.”

DESPERATELY WANTING A CHILD

Around the age of 30, she left the facility. Nishi moved into an apartment in Chiba and started living with two other women with cerebral palsy with the help of caregivers.

Later, she married a man who was a caregiving volunteer. She started wishing to have a child.

She and her husband visited a hospital in Osaka Prefecture where she underwent the hysterectomy to find out the possibility of pregnancy.

But the doctor kept dodging her questions. She thought that meant she was unable to have a child.

Moving around in an electric wheelchair, she repeatedly went around a garden of a big house and peeked inside coin lockers, hoping to find an abandoned baby.

Nishi later divorced. She remained independent minded and refused to live in an institution. But she has never forgotten about her hysterectomy.

SEEKING TO MAKE PUBLIC AWARE

During the 1990s, a woman, whom she did not know, visited her through an acquaintance.

The woman appeared to be conducting a survey and asked her, “Have you undergone a forced sterilization operation based on the Eugenic Protection Law?”

Nishi then realized what she had been vaguely aware of--she was forced to have surgery on the basis of a disability and under a law.

In 2019, a relief law for victims such as Nishi was finally enacted.

Nishi received a lump-sum compensation payment of 3.2 million yen ($25,000).

“Is that it?” she thought.

There were other victims who sued the central government for more compensation.

But the statute of limitations was 20 years, a barrier standing in the way of justice.

But the Osaka High Court in February this year, as well as the Tokyo High Court in March, ruled that applying the statute of limitations was “utterly in conflict with the principles of justice and fairness.” The government was ordered to pay up to about 15 million yen to a plaintiff.

As the government appealed the ruling, Nishi heard about the case from a caregiver. She had not known about the lawsuit previously.

“Somebody has taken action,” she thought. Encouraged by the news, she started her own effort to file a lawsuit.

She wrote in a letter sent to the health ministry: “Because of the former Eugenic Protection Law, I was deceived and had an operation. My life has been lived in darkness.”

By using her real name, she hopes that more people become aware of the issue and recognize her suffering.

Lawyers and supporters of forced sterilization victims will hold a nationwide telephone counseling event on April 20.

The list of phone numbers can be seen here:
(http://yuseibengo.starfree.jp/archives/2215)