Japan Press Weekly

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2013 June 5 - 11 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

UN Human Rights Council calls on Japan to protect Fukushima disaster victims’ health

The UN Human Rights Council has called on Japan to provide health checkups and necessary medical treatments to those who have been affected by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster.

This was revealed on June 4 at a press conference in the Fukushima prefectural government’s office by the Tokyo-based NGO “Human Rights Now”, which took part in the UN council’s meeting held in late May in Geneva.

At the meeting, Special Rapporteur Anand Grover reported on how the nuclear disaster has affected people’s right to maintain health based on detailed hearings he conducted last November in Japan from officials of national government ministries and the Fukushima prefectural government as well as other people concerned.

Grover demanded that the Japanese government conduct health-care surveys on residents living in areas where the annual individual radiation exposure dose is more than 1 mSv and on nuclear plant workers as well as provide them medical treatment if necessary.

The recommendation also urged the government to include residents who have been affected by the nuclear accident in its work to compile a basic plan for the law to support nuclear accident child victims, which was enacted in June last year.

At the press conference, Human Rights Now Secretary General Ito Kazuko stressed that the recommendation has indicated that the weakest and most vulnerable, namely young children, should provide the standards used by the government to promote measures to protect nuclear disaster victims’ health.