Junko Iizuka, who is in her 70s, leads a quiet life in Miyagi Prefecture, growing strawberries and herbs and watching the news every day.

She developed her relatively stable life after suffering through years of misery and cruelty and deciding, “I don’t want to cry myself to sleep anymore.”

WOKE UP STERILIZED

Born in a seaside town in Miyagi Prefecture, Iizuka was a junior high school student when a welfare worker accused her of theft.

The girl proclaimed her innocence, but she was declared “mentally disabled” and sent to an institution.

When she was 16, she was taken to a clinic and given an injection of anesthesia. She woke up in a bed with a throbbing pain in her stomach.

She overheard her parents saying that she “had an operation that makes it impossible for her to have children.”

“From the moment I learned about it, my suffering began,” she recalled.

Iizuka got married, but when she told her husband about her sterilization operation, his parents blamed her.

Her husband, whom she had trusted, ended up leaving her.

Iizuka fell into depression, and she later learned that her father had been forced to agree to the surgery on his daughter.

She decided to seek justice against those who had caused her so much pain.

LONG LEGAL PROCESS

In 1997, Iizuka and her supporters began complaining to the health ministry about the damage caused under the Eugenic Protection Law, which was enacted in 1948 to “prevent the birth of defective offspring.”

It stipulated that people with disabilities or certain diseases could be forcibly sterilized.

But the central government simply reiterated that the Eugenic Protection Law “was legal at the time.”

The law was replaced in 1996.

The turning point for Iizuka came in 2013, when she attended a consultation meeting in the prefecture for advice on daily life.

The lawyer at the meeting was Koji Niisato, now 72.

Niisato had been providing consultations for years mainly to help victims with multiple debts and loan problems. His mission was to change society in which debt drives people to death.

Iizuka told Niisato about her surgery and how it has affected her life.

He immediately thought, “This is a case I have to take.”

Iizuka, however, had no records of the surgery.

In 2015, she filed a petition for human rights relief with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations. But the government did not respond.

She later learned that another woman in Miyagi Prefecture had also undergone a sterilization operation.

A relative of the woman contacted Iizuka and showed the surgical records.

In 2018, the woman filed the first lawsuit in Japan seeking state compensation for forced sterilization at the Sendai District Court.

The ruling favored the plaintiff, and the court also recognized the damage caused to Iizuka.

Similar lawsuits over the Eugenic Protection Law were filed across Japan.

VICTORY GAINED

On July 3, the Supreme Court again ruled that the former eugenic law was “unconstitutional” and ordered the government to compensate those who were forcibly sterilized under the law.

But this time, the top court also waived the 20-year statute of limitations for seeking compensation.

After the ruling, Iizuka and the other woman from Miyagi Prefecture held hands and said, “It’s been a long time.”

Iizuka said: “I have come this far after suffering for such a long time. Today is the best day of my life.”

Although the plaintiffs won essentially all aspects of the case, the ruling cannot erase years of suffering.

Iizuka said she will continue to lead a quiet life on her own, but her physical strength is declining and she is wobbling more and more.

And she continues to ask why she had to be victimized by such a despicable practice.

When she saw a news report about a married couple with disabilities who were trying to raise a child, she thought, “They can do it if they have support.”

Then she wondered: “Why did we have to undergo surgery back then instead of receiving support? Why was my life at the mercy of my country?”

Iizuka added: “I want to go back to 16 years old and start my life over.”

(This article was written by Ikuko Abe and Yuki Kawano.)