Children as young as 9 were among around 25,000 people with disabilities who were sterilized in Japan under a now-defunct eugenics law, with 65% of the procedures carried out without consent and some being led to believe they were being treated for an illness, parliament's first report on the issue showed Monday.
Based on a parliamentary probe into the law, effective from 1948 to 1996, the report said sterilization was a condition for admission at some welfare facilities or for marriage. It also reported cases of radiation exposure and uterus removal.
The eugenics law authorized sterilizing people with intellectual disabilities, mental illness or hereditary disorders to prevent the birth of "inferior" offspring.