Japan war orphans win legal fight
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6197958.stm Version 0 of 1. A Japanese court has ruled that dozens of Japanese citizens abandoned as children in China at the end of World War II should be paid compensation. The court ordered the government to pay 460m yen ($4m, £2m) to 61 war orphans raised by Chinese families. Their parents were killed or forced to abandon them when they fled China for Japan at the end of the war in 1945. The plaintiffs said the ruling acknowledged that they had experienced a "serious violation of human rights". They argued that Japan failed to repatriate them early enough and that they were entitled to compensation because of this. Responsibility "The government bears a significant political responsibility to rescue war orphans," said Judge Hitoshi Hashizume of the Kobe District Court, in Western Japan. The plaintiffs began clapping when they were told of the news. "I'm very happy," Mitsuko Miyajima told Agence France Presse. "I can finally be a grandma who can give [...] a gift to a grandchild entering high school." The government, which has yet to decide whether it will appeal against the decision, acknowledged that it was a "severe ruling". Four of the 65 plaintiffs failed to get compensation because the statute of limitations had expired. Limitations It was the second ruling on war orphans - last year an Osaka court ruled that it had no obligation to help the former orphans achieve financial independence. Thousands of Japanese children were left behind in north-east China amid the fighting and confusion of the war's end. They were looked after by Chinese parents and grew up as though Chinese nationals, before the Japanese government started repatriating them in the 1980s. More than 2,400 have returned to Japan since the 1980s following the normalisation of ties between the two countries in 1972. But most have found integration into Japanese society difficult. Many were shunned by their relatives and now survive on welfare. |