Mental Health Japan

Japan appeals compensation for ex-leprosy patients

“TOKYO, Nov 8 (Reuters) - The Japanese government has appealed a court ruling ordering it to pay compensation to former leprosy patients from Taiwan who were incarcerated under Japanese colonial rule, the Health and Welfare ministry said on Tuesday.

Separately, however, the government said it would consider some form of relief for the now elderly victims in Taiwan, South Korea and some Pacific islands of Japan’s policy to isolate leprosy patients in territories it occupied until the end of World War Two.

“Our understanding of the compensation law is that it does not apply to people outside Japan,” Health and Welfare Minister Jiro Kawasaki told reporters.

Leprosy is curable and not easily communicated. But under a Japanese law in force until 1996, patients with leprosy — now known as Hansen’s disease — were forcibly confined to isolation centres.

The patients, some as young as 7, were made to leave their families and enter the centres. Patients who wanted to marry had to be sterilised, and those who became pregnant were forced to undergo abortions.

A Japanese court last month supported a claim from the Taiwanese plaintiffs that a law mandating compensation for former leprosy patients who were incarcerated in Japan also applied to its former colonies.

Plaintiffs condemned the government’s decision to appeal the court ruling as discriminatory.

“It is a terrible shame,” one Taiwanese plaintiff quoted by NHK television said of the government’s appeal. “I am filled with anger and despair. Japanese ex-leprosy patients are being compensated, so I cannot forgive this discriminatory treatment.”

A separate ruling on the same day in the same court, but under a different judge, rejected a similar case brought by South Korean plaintiffs. Those plaintiffs have already appealed that decision.

“The court case is purely about the interpretation of the current law,” a ministry official said. “We don’t see any contradiction between the appeal and separate consideration of other methods of compensation.”

In one of the first big surprises of his premiership, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided in 2001 not to appeal a court ruling that the government should compensate Japanese leprosy patients who were confined…”

Reuters Alernet, 8 November, 2005