Japan Press Weekly

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2013 April 17 - 23 [WELFARE]

Spouses of Japanese war orphans seek public aid

About 450 Japanese former war orphans, their Chinese spouses, and lawyers on April 16 held a meeting in the Diet building, calling for public livelihood support to be given also to the spouses.

At present, only ex-war orphans can receive governmental support such as national pension benefits and assistance grants. They are requesting that the government start providing benefits to their Chinese partners after their deaths.

Japanese Communist Party member of the Upper House Inoue Satoshi at the meeting said, “The situation now is a consequence of the national policy of the time and you all deserve public help. I will make cross-party efforts towards the realization of that need.”

A participant in the meeting said, “Chinese spouses who came to Japan with their Japanese husbands or wives have experienced hardships in the same way as the war orphans. I want the Japanese government to address this problem.”

During the war, Imperial Japan sent a lot of Japanese nationals to Manchuria and northeastern China under the national policy of that time. When the war ended in August 1945, Japan abandoned them. On the way to escaping from the continent, many Japanese had to give up bringing their children home with them. After Japan restored diplomatic relations with China in 1972, these left-behind orphans’ permanent return to Japan became possible. The returnees’ lives, however, have been a full of hardships with discrimination and poverty.