The Japanese government crushed hope on measure with disabled peoople 障害者政策の改善への希望、日本政府によって断たれる

I reported on an article in this blog

"Crisis in measures for persons with disability 日本の障害者政策が危機に"

http://ordinarydaysinjapan.blogspot.jp/2012/02/crisis-in-measures-for-persons-with.html

that the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry and the Democratic Party of Japan(DPJ) were rushing to enact a new bill on  welfare for the disabled against a recommendation by the task force to discuss new act for disabled people.
It is regrettable that the new bill were decided by the cabinet on Mar. 13, 2012 and will pass into law in the Diet.


以前、本ブログの記事
「Crisis in measures for persons with disability 日本の障害者政策が危機に」
http://ordinarydaysinjapan.blogspot.jp/2012/02/crisis-in-measures-for-persons-with.html
で、厚生労働省と民主党が、総合福祉部会による障がい者総合福祉法案を成立させないよう、別の新法案の成立を図っていることを述べた。
残念ながら、厚生労働省と民主党による案は2012年3月13日に閣議決定され、国会で可決されることとなった。

・The pointless argument by Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry


the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry said that "It is necessary to hold continuity between the old act and the new act, so we can't terminate the old Services and Supports for Persons with Disabilities Act”.
The recommendation by the task force intended to enact new act that will prepare the ratification of the disability convention of the UN. So it will radically change current law. Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry refusing the change, it means they have no plan to ratify the disability convention of the UN and to guarantee the basic human rights of disabled people in Japan.


厚生労働省の新法案阻止のための屁理屈

厚生労働省は「新旧の法律の継続性を考慮する場合は廃止が出来ない」という理由で、障害者自立支援法廃止を拒んだ。
総合福祉部会による提言の目的は、国連障害者権利条約を批准する前提となる新法案を成立させることにあった。したがって、障害者自立支援法の根本的な改革となることは必然である。それを拒む厚生労働省は、国連障害者権利条約を批准するつもりも、日本の障害者に人権を保証するつもりもないのである。


・Services and Supports for Persons with Disabilities Act will be maintained in effect

The new bill by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry is actually the Services and Supports for Persons with Disabilities Act. The act has 105 sections, and the new bill made minor change on the act. Only 7 sections are changed. It should not be called the new bill.

障害者自立支援法が維持される結果に

厚生労働省による新法案は、障害者自立支援法の105条文のうち、7条文にマイナーチェンジを施したものである。これを新法案と呼ぶべきではない。

・The new bill by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said no to disabled people's initiative to right


The draft raw and recommendation by the task force could help disabled people's independent life in local communities and could make prior condition to ratify the disability convention of the UN. But the new bill by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry have no section to credit disabled people's initiative to right.

障害者を権利の主体とすることを拒んだ厚生労働省

総合福祉部会による提言と法案は、障害者が地域で自立した生活を営む基本的権利の保障規定を設け、国連障害者権利条約批准の前提を整備するものであった。しかし厚生労働省による新法案には、障害者を権利の主体とする記述が全くない。

・Disabled people will be forced to pay to assistance for live

Services and Supports for Persons with Disabilities Act forced disabled people to pay for services that were necessary to live. It pushed disabled people and their family in poverty more increasing poverty. Several families with disabled person commit suicide, because their hope to live in peace were crushed.
In Dec. 2010, the act slightly changed to pay according to income, but it is not solved the problem that disabled people in Japan have to pay to live. The new bill by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry maintains this problem.  They are saying that the disabled person is responsible for the difficulties from the disabilities. That is conflicting to attitude adopted by the disability convention of the UN, because the convention is saying that the society is responsible to make disabled people to live with no difficulties from the disabilities.


障害福祉サービスは利用者負担のまま


障害者自立支援法は、障害福祉サービスの費用を利用者が支払うことを「自立支援」と呼ぶ意味不明な法案で、一般的に貧困な障害者をさらに貧困にし、生きる権利を奪うものであった。障害者自立支援法の施行前後、数組の障害者家族が、先行きを悲観して心中を図っている。
2010年12月、障害者自立支援法のマイナーチェンジが行われた。それまでの、サービス利用量に応じて費用を支払う「応益負担」から、家計能力に応じて支払う「応能負担」となった。しかし、障害者から生きることそのものに対するコストを徴収しているという問題は解決されていない。厚生労働省による新法案は、この「障害者は生きているだけでコストを支払わなくてはならない」という問題点をそのまま維持するものである。これは、障害の個人モデルに基づいた考え方であり、国連障害者権利条約が採用している障害の社会モデルと相反している。

At last of this article, I'd like to quote a line from a novel "Exodus for the nation of the hope" by Ryu Murakami that fits my dispair.
"In this nation, there are everything. There are various items. But there is no hope."


最後に、日本のある小説から、今の私の感情を言い表してくれているかのようなセリフを一つ引用して、結びとする。
「この国には何でもある。本当にいろいろなものがある。だが希望だけがない」（「村上龍・希望の国のエクソダス」）

References( in Japanese ):

参考資料：

・障害者自立支援法違憲訴訟原告団・弁護団「厚生労働省案ではなぜダメなのか」
http://www.kyosaren.or.jp/news/2012/120229sosyoudanpress.pdf

・障害者総合支援法案に対する見解
http://www.kyosaren.or.jp/news/2012/0313_1.htm

On 1 year after the quake

Today is just 1 year after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

In last autumn, one of my friend Sandra Katzman collaborated with me and wrote a brief article in dialogue about our experiences after the quake.
Today, I would like to post the article in memoriam of the quake.

Thank you, Sandra.

Brief bios:

Sandra Katzman, a U.S. citizen living in Japan since 1996, reports for Platts energy industry news and has written for Reuters Health and for various American Chemical Society journals.  

Yoshiko Miwa, a Japanese national, is a doctoral candidate at University of Tsukuba, majoring in the computational simulation of semiconductor nanoprocess. Miwa is a Journalist in Residence of the Mathematical Society of Japan. She has collaborated on books such as A first guide of hardware for software engineers (published by Gijyutsuhyouronsya) and reports for online engineering magazines.
Email miwa@miwachan.info


3.11--Japan’s 9.11
by Sandra Katzman and Miwa Yoshiko

“Cities of death” and “credible threats” describe persistent disaster in Japan and in the United States.  The trade minister lost his job for saying the first; U.S. security forces gained respect for announcing the second.  At this month’s anniversaries of unkind explosions, Japan lures foreign tourists with sales, and the President says the U.S. is stronger.    It’s business as usual.

A Japanese graduate science student who is also a science/technical writer and an American science writer talk about living in Japan after the meltdown in March at Fukushima nuclear power plant.  Although each lives with compromised health --the former has been motion impaired since 2004 in a wheelchair due to unknown causes, and the latter has terminal lung cancer—both are upbeat yet skeptical about safety in newly radioactive Japan.

Sandra: I saw on your blog a photo of a bakery in Tokyo selling bread with some purported anti-radiation effect. Can you tell me about that bakery?

Yoshiko: On September 12, I visited the bakery again, and it had closed. The bakery had been under a court-guided rehabilitation process for companies that failed in business, but did not revive and is now awaiting bankruptcy proceedings.

I think the bakery unsuccessfully tried to profit from the Fukushima nuke power plant accidents. And I’m angry that the bakery used the victim of the quake for promotion. It employed a baker who had been a bakery owner at Fukushima before the quake and now that baker lost his job again.

Sandra: My cousin, an American boy, married a Japanese.  The girl's father is a gynecologist, and not worried about his grandchild due in May in Tokyo.

Yoshiko: I think the young couple chose well. Slight radioactive pollution of air and water may not damage newborns. Tokyoites can buy unpolluted food and water, and superior employment eases education of children. Wherever we live in Japan, we are not safe from a little radioactive pollution. So it is wise to hold the freedom of choice and take a little risk. Are you well informed about disasters? The media in Japan are not informative enough. We depend on CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera.

Sandra: I can read Japanese English-language media: The Japan Times, and English translations of the other newspapers.   I also subscribe to websites such as news from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and from the federation of trade unions, Keidanren.

Yoshiko: I have been a member of LinuxChix (the world’s largest female Linux user group) for twelve years. I heard about friends of members in Tokyo who couldn’t get information about daily life, like when the electric power cut would occur, or where water could be bought. So I notified the group about radio broadcasts for foreigners and provided my cell number.  It was very odd:  People living in Tokyo got help from their friends in the U.S., and the people in the U.S. asked me to help the people in Tokyo. The Japanese government and neighbors were not effective.

Sandra: A few weeks after the disaster, U.S. national newspapers stopped carrying daily coverage about Fukushima; but the Japanese dailies kept running stories.

Yoshiko:  I didn't know that. I thought U.S. national newspapers covered Fukushima and its problems thoroughly.

Sandra:  I worried about information lack when a U.S. friend told me about the claims of anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott, M.D. that the Japanese government was hiding information, and that the situation was much more dangerous than the Japanese government and other official sources let on.  So-called “low-level” radiation, Caldicott warned, causes “medical problems of very large dimensions.”

Yoshiko: Familiar with government attitudes, we Japanese guess the truth through very uncertain information.  Some Japanese are sponsoring independent journalists.

Sandra: I was on spring vacation skiing in California with my brother and my cousin. Email alerted “EQ Tokyo.”  I was reminded of the 9.11email, “terror.”   Skiing was very good on March 11.  Fun on frozen water was the opposite of the terror of a seismic wave.  My cousin’s son sent photos of the newlyweds smiling and swaying in hardhats on the 30th floor of a Tokyo office building.

Yoshiko: On 3.11, I was going to file my taxes when the quake occurred. I told my cats, “Calm down, calm down!" By Internet, I learned about the disaster. I joined the housewives talking in the street. They were worrying about their husbands and children who were working or studying in the heart of Tokyo.  I called my aunt in a faraway place to tell that I was OK. By phone, I ordered rice and water before the buyout started.  In the evening, I heard that the Fukushima nuke power plant had exploded. I joined the project "Payforwarding" where engineers developed applications to help disaster victims.   My role was a document engineer.

Sandra:  A friend from the U.S. will visit Kyoto. She changed plans last April, not wanting to celebrate cherry blossoms when Japan mourned.  Now she thinks meat and fish are dangerous.

Yoshiko: I thank your friend for her kind attention to us Japanese. The maple leaves will beautiful in October and November, and delicious autumn fishes around Japan can be eaten without danger. We consumers are nervous about food radiation, and distributors are more nervous. Eat only commercially distributed products.

Sandra: A Japanese friend believes konbu, or kelp, will help prevent bad effects from radioactivity.

Yoshiko: Konbu contains a lot of iodine, but how the human body will absorb it is not certain.  Take iodine under a doctor’s supervision to prevent uptake of radioactive iodine. I'm afraid that the konbu itself may be radioactively polluted after 3.11.  And now, the problem is cesium 137 rather than iodine. Konbu may not be effective for cesium.

Sandra:  Before flying back to Japan, I sought advice.  “There is no reason to postpone your return to Japan,” my oncologist told me.   “There is no influence in west Japan for the present. The nuclear power plant in Fukushima is far from Kyoto, and the leaking radiation level is still low.” Tokyo is 150 miles from Fukushima; Kyoto is about 324 miles from Fukushima.

Yoshiko: I think your doctor made good suggestion. Wherever we live, we are not safe from various threats like terror, accident and natural disaster. So we have to deal with threats, not escape.