Features : Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
Tomoko YONEZU
DPI Women's Network Japan
[The article below is the same as the article that appears in the eighteenth issue of the CGS Newsletter.]
There has been widespread media coverage of a human rights complaint ¬led to the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) on June 23, 2015, by a woman who was forced to undergo sterilization under Japan's former Eugenic Protection Law. Tomoko Yonezu from DPI Women's Network Japan discusses the discrimination and exclusion suffered by women with disabilities and the history of the disability rights movement in Japan.
Brewed amidst the conflicting politics of population control and the international women's health movement, the movement for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) finally came to fruition in the Cairo Programme of Action (PoA) of the UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994. RHR was also mentioned in Article 23, "Respect for Home and the Family," and Article 25, "Health," of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2006. However, in Japan, where the SRHR of women without disabilities has not yet been secured, the situation is even more challenging for women with disabilities.
Disabled People's International (DPI) Women's Network Japan's survey on discrimination in 2011 elicited various responses concerning sex and sexuality such as, "In 1963, when I was in my teens I was forced to undergo an operation for sterilization," "Since my period started in junior high school, my mother urged me to have a hysterectomy," "I was told not to have children because 'disabilities are inherited' and 'you won't be able to raise children properly'," and "I was encouraged to have prenatal testing and an abortion." We have also heard from a number of women who have been refused admission to a hospital to give birth because of their disability.
Under the Eugenic Protection Law (1948-1996) in Japan, there were 16,477 officially recorded cases of forced sterilization for eugenic reasons. Approximately 70 percent of the victims were women. There was also tacit acceptance of operations using procedures that were in breach of the law, as well as hysterectomies to control menstruation. Even after the law was revised as the Maternal Protection Law in 1996, the SRHR of women with disabilities has been inhibited due to the deep-rooted prejudice that "women with disabilities do not and should not reproduce."
Nevertheless, women with disabilities themselves have been actively campaigning for SRHR in Japan for decades. In the 1970s, women with severe disabilities spearheaded a movement for their right to give birth and raise children. With the introduction of the independent living movement in the 1980s, they established peer counseling and other systems and services, fostering their self-affirmation and decision-making power through discussions of sex and reproduction. Subsequently, they also founded a self-help child-rearing support group, and collaborated with women without disabilities. Women with disabilities contributed their perspectives to a 1980s survey on menstruation. In 1994, they denounced Japan's Eugenic Protection Law at an NGO forum during the Cairo ICPD. The international media coverage placed external pressure on the Japanese government.
Currently, DPI Women's Network is working toward reforming the system in Japan according to Articles 23 and 25 of the CRPD so that people with disabilities will be given access to sexual and reproductive health services and the right to retain their reproductive capacities and determine the number and spacing of their children. We have also appealed to the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
Among the numerous SRHR issues for women with disabilities, we would particularly like to see the promotion of sexual and reproductive health education, information dissemination, and pregnancy-related services, along with the development of technologies for menstrual products and contraception.
Gender discrimination in our society means that pregnancy, child rearing, and housework are a woman's roles; as only those women who are seen to fulfill these roles are recognized, and women with disabilities are alienated. Population policies manipulate women so that they only give birth to the necessary number of healthy children, denying the sexual and reproductive rights of those with disabilities. The promotion of SRHR is part of a battle by the women's health movement to challenge such policies. It is our hope that this movement will also secure the SRHR of women with disabilities in future.