The government Wednesday demanded the dismissal of a compensation claim filed by a woman in her 60s with intellectual disabilities over her forced sterilization under the now-defunct eugenic protection law.
In the first such trial in Japan, the woman from Miyagi Prefecture is seeking ¥11 million ($104,000) in damages from the state, claiming it failed to take legislative measures to save the victims from "grave human rights violations."
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has maintained that forced sterilizations were legal at the time. The law, in force from 1948 to 1996, authorized the sterilization of people with intellectual disabilities, mental illness or hereditary disorders to prevent births of "inferior" offspring.