December 20, 2024

Together with a Hiroshima Hibakusha, representatives of a high school students’ peace group on December 19 submitted to the Foreign Ministry a written request demanding that Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The youth peace group in its document also urged PM Ishiba to decide to participate as an observer in the third Meeting of State Parties to the TPNW.

In the meeting with a ministry official, a second-year female student said that seeking to influence the government, she has engaged in street action of collecting signatures in support of nuclear abolition.

Another female student, who is in her third year of high school, said, “I hope that Japan will be a nation cooperating with the people of the world in efforts to bring peace to every corner of the earth.”

Another second-year female student pointed out that to abolish nuclear weapons is a time-sensitive issue, and added that as the only A-bombed nation in the world, it is Japan’s responsibility to clearly show its stance on that issue.

A 90-year-old Hibakusha, Yamada Reiko, a member awardee of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Survivors Organization (Nihon Hidankyo), experienced the A-bombing of Hiroshima when she was 10 years old. She talked about her story and her experience of giving testimony as an A-bomb survivor in the United States. She demanded that the Japanese government take action to abolish nuclear weapons.