Pending legislation to pay compensation to family members of former Hansen's disease patients, an outline of which was compiled by a group of lawmakers across party lines, finally paves the way for relief to relatives left behind after the government extended an apology and damages to the former patients themselves in the early 2000s. To make sure that the relief will help all of the former patients' relatives who have long suffered discrimination, the financial compensation must be accompanied by greater efforts to eliminate lingering prejudice over the disease.
False perceptions of Hansen's disease were long widespread in many countries and regions. In modern Japan, segregation of Hansen's disease patients started without much medical basis. Under the Leprosy Prevention Law of 1931, the government pushed for forceful segregation of patients at state-run sanitariums — which in turn magnified social prejudice toward the disease and fueled discrimination against the patients and their family members.
The segregation policy was maintained even after a medical cure for the disease was established and isolation of the patients was no longer warranted. The law was eventually scrapped in 1996. Meanwhile, the mistaken perception of the disease as a horrible, highly contagious malady — which it was not — subjected relatives of the patients to severe discrimination in education, employment opportunities and marriage.