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Last 10 yen coin to call JCP saves couple

"Help us, please!" A woman made a phone call to the Japanese Communist Party Tomo District Committee office in Kiryu City, Gunma Prefecture, on June 7.

As she hung up in the middle of the conversation, three JCP activists rushed to where she was believed to be. After a painstaking search, they found a middle-aged couple sitting on a bench in a park.

The couple, Ito Akira (55 years old) and Sachie (56 years old), became unable to survive, because their illness prevented them from working. They could not pay medical costs, utility bills, and housing rent.

They went to the city office several times to apply for welfare benefits, but the city office turned down their request by saying that they should ask for help to their parents and relatives.

It was one day after they were evicted from their apartment when they remembered that their friend had advised them to consult the JCP if they had a hard time. They called the JCP office, using the last 10 yen coin they had, and the connection was terminated in one minute.

The JCP local committee was quick to take actions to help them. City Assembly member Nakata Hanzo found an apartment for them, and negotiated with the city office so that the couple can receive welfare benefits.

As they received national health insurance cards again, they became able to receive treatments. Akira was found to suffer from kidney stones and Sachie from an aneurysm.

JCP City Assembly member Sato Sadao took up the Ito's case at the city assembly session, urging the city to stop rejecting applications for welfare.

Sekiguchi Naohisa, a JCP prefectural assembly election candidate and one of those who joined in the search for the couple, said, "The Koizumi government's policy threatens the Constitutional right to live. The Ito case brought home to me that in order to resolve the problem the public is faced with the JCP needs to win many more assembly seats."

In Kiryu City, the number of families on welfare benefits increased from 406 in FY 2000 to 580 in FY 2004, up 42 percent.

Rejection of applications for welfare has claimed lives nationwide in such cases as the man who starved to death in Kitakyushu City and the man who committed suicide in protest in Akita City.

A Kiryu local newspaper carried a column with the headline, "The weight of a 10 yen coin." It stated, "A high official who is in a position to decide the interest rate has made profit by investing in a private fund with a high yield. For the couple, however, the one 10 yen coin was their only lifeline."
- Akahata, July 23, 2006