Under the former Eugenic Protection Law, sterilization surgeries were forced on people with intellectual disabilities, mental illnesses and hereditary diseases to "prevent the births of eugenically inferior offspring" for decades in postwar Japan, until the law was amended in 1996 to remove the discriminatory provisions that enabled such surgeries even without the victims' consent. After some victims of forced sterilization filed a series of lawsuits starting last year against the government seeking state compensation for their suffering, a suprapartisan group of Diet members recently put together draft legislation that calls for a lump-sum payment of ¥3.2 million for each of the victims who were subjected to the sterilization surgery under the defunct law.

It's far from clear, however, whether the legislation will settle the problem. The victims and their lawyers say the draft legislation falls short of clarifying the state's responsibility for their plight, while the size of the payment is much less than the levels of compensation they are demanding for the loss of their right to have children. While the lawmakers hope to get the legislation enacted as early as next month — before the first court ruling on the series of suits is handed down, possibly in May — the lawyers for the plaintiffs say they will pursue the legal battle, now contested by 20 people in seven district courts across the country, and charge that the proposed law is insufficient to make up for the damage they sustained under the discriminatory policy.

With more than two decades having passed since the forced sterilization law was terminated, and many of the victims and their family members now advanced in age, relief for the victims is long overdue and should be promptly disbursed. It is estimated that some 25,000 people underwent the sterilization surgery, with at least 16,500 of them subjected to the operation without their consent. However, records of the surgeries reportedly exist for only about 3,000 of them. In that sense, it is a positive development that the legislation paves the way for financial relief for victims whose surgery records have gone missing. Whether or not the claimants qualify for the relief will be determined by a screening committee to be set up by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry based on testimony of the victims and their relatives, as well as the opinions of doctors. People who are believed to have consented to the surgery will also be covered by the relief measure.