By YASUSABURO NAKAMURA/ Staff Writer
January 24, 2023 at 18:29 JST
A building where the main office of Asunaro Social Welfare Service Corp. is located in Esashi, Hokkaido (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
The welfare ministry has issued a reminder to local authorities across Japan that it is illegal for service providers to tell people with disabilities they must get sterilized to use their services.
The move follows revelations late last year that a group home in Hokkaido for people with intellectual disabilities run by a social welfare corporation recommended couples living on its premises who hoped to live together or marry get sterilized or undertake other birth control measures.
Eight couples had undergone sterilization procedures at the recommendation of Asunaro Social Welfare Service Corp., which had recommended sterilizations to its clientele for some two and a half decades.
Welfare minister Katsunobu Kato announced the content of the notice on Jan. 23, which requests authorities to ensure that local services for people with disabilities are appropriate and respect their will and dignity.
The notice, dated Jan. 20, asks 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.
It said people with disabilities are entitled to make their own decisions on marriage, giving birth and raising children.
“It should not be allowed (for organizations) to only provide support to disabled people on the condition that they cannot give birth or raise children because of their disability,” the notice said.
It also requested that authorities thoroughly investigate and provide guidance and supervision to service providers if they suspect that anything illegal is taking place.
At the same time, Kato announced the ministry is planning to conduct research into the marriages, pregnancies, childbirths and childrearing of people with disabilities to better understand their realities. The research will start in fiscal 2023.
A ministry official said the ministry will mull how it can better support people with disabilities.
“We haven’t grasped their realities well enough because they fall through cracks in the system,” the official added.
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