The government may soon face more lawsuits over the forced sterilization of people with disabilities as a group of lawyers said Friday that preparations are under way following the first such lawsuit, which was filed by a Miyagi woman earlier this year.
The group, led by lawyer Koji Niisato. said three or four people in Tokyo and in Hokkaido and Miyagi prefectures are planning to sue around mid-May for their sterilizations under the now-defunct eugenics protection law. They said more could follow because they plan to create a group covering victims nationwide by early June.
Among the plaintiffs-to-be is a woman in her 70s from Miyagi who was sterilized without consent under the 1948 law at age 16 on the grounds that she had an intellectual disability.