Childcare center to be constructed in leprosy sanatorium

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Childcare center to be constructed in leprosy sanatorium

A childcare center will be opened at Tama-Zenshoen, the national sanatorium for Hansen’s disease, in Tokyo’s Higashimurayama City. This was announced by a city official and a representative of Zenshoen residents’ association on October 13.

Ko Michihiro, president of the National Hansen’s Disease Sanatoria Residents’ Association, said, “In order to end discrimination against former leprosy patients, building a childcare center at our sanatorium will have a strong positive impact on society.”

Until 1996, the Japanese government supported the policy to forcibly put leprosy patients in quarantine since the Leprosy Law was enacted in 1931.

The Act on Promotion of Resolution Issues Related to Hansen’s Disease established in 2008 calls on the government to improve welfare services for former patients, restore their dignity, and open national sanatoriums to nearby residents. The announced plan was an example of utilizing the law.

In 2008, one private childcare center in Higashimurayama City asked Zenshoen about the possibility of building a childcare center on a part of Zenshoen’s property because the center’s playground was small and its building old.

Zenshoen and its residents’ association together with trade unions, citizens groups, and the Japanese Communist Party launched a movement to promote the childcare center construction plan. Higashimuraya City, which has 200 children on the waiting list for childcare centers, also cooperated with movement participants.

The problem for the city was how much the payment for leasing the land of the national sanatorium owned by the government should be. JCP representative Koike Akira in the Diet in March 2010 urged the Welfare Ministry to lease Zenshoen’s land free of charge. As a result, the city agreed to pay the ministry an annual land rental fee of 1,329 yen per square meter.

Sagawa Osamu, chair of the Zenshoen residents’ association, said, “Even after the end of the war, leprosy patients were forced to have sterilization operations. We were prohibited from having children. When we look at small children, we feel like they could have been our grandchildren.”

- Akahata, October 18, 2010