The small island of Nagashima in Setouchi, Okayama Prefecture, is home to two national sanatoriums for people who have been affected by Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, a legacy of the past national policy of isolating those who contracted the disease.
Dubbed “the bridge to restore humanity,” the Oku-Nagashima Bridge connecting Nagashima with the Honshu mainland marked the 35th anniversary of its opening on May 9. The blue-arched bridge has become a symbol of acknowledgement that the segregation policy, under which patients suffered for decades from discrimination, was wrong.
Masao Ishida, 86, who has lived at the Nagashima Aiseien sanatorium since he was 10 years old, is one of those who campaigned for the bridge to be built, to free people from isolation.
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