Victims of forced sterilisation under a now-defunct eugenics law, celebrate with lawyers and supporters outside of the Supreme Court of Japan in Tokyo on Jul 3, 2024. TOKYO: Japan's top court ruled on Wednesday that a defunct eugenics law under which thousands of people were forcibly sterilised between 1948 and 1996 was unconstitutional, local media reported.
The law allowed doctors to sterilise people with inheritable intellectual disabilities to"prevent the generation of poor quality descendants". "I've spent an agonising 66 years because of the government surgery. I want my life back that I was robbed of," victim Saburo Kita, who uses a pseudonym, said before Wednesday's ruling.
That dark history was thrust back under the spotlight in 2018 when a woman in her 60s sued the government over a procedure she had undergone at age 15, opening the floodgates for similar lawsuits. Regional courts have mostly agreed in recent years that the eugenics law constituted a violation of Japan's constitution.