2023 World Conference against A and H Bombs
International Meeting – Session 1
HAMAZUMI Jiro
Assistant Secretary General
Japan Confederation of A-and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations(Nihon Hidankyo)
Greetings on behalf of the Hibakusha

I am Hamasumi Jiro, Assistant Secretary General of the Japan Confederation of Aand H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo). Thank you very much forgiving me the opportunity to speak here.
This summer, we mark the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. Conflicts are continuing in many parts of the world today. It’s been ayear and half since Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine with threats to usenuclear weapons. Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus in rivalry
with NATO, further increasing the risk of nuclear weapons being used. NATOmember countries are continuing arms supply to Ukraine. The United States recently
announced it would provide Ukraine with cluster bombs. All this raises a concern thatthe war might be dragged into a prolonged quagmire.
The G7 Summit took place in Hiroshima in May and issued “G7 Leaders’ Hiroshima
Vision on Nuclear Disarmament.” In this document, there was no reference to theTreaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Nothing was mentioned
about Hibakusha or the inhuman nature of nuclear weapons. It simply disappointed
the Hibakusha. The G7 leaders instead focused their discussion on nuclear
deterrence, arguing that achieving a world without nuclear weapons is their ultimate
goal. They are making the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons ambiguous while
keeping the NPT regime intact. At the NPT Review Conference in August 2022, theNihon Hidankyo representative said, “We are frustrated by the fact that the nuclear
weapon states are disregarding the unequivocal commitment they made at the 2000
Review Conference and reconfirmed in 2010 to achieve the complete elimination of
their nuclear arsenals. The nuclear weapon states and their allies should recognizethat all humankind is at the brink of nuclear war due to their insincerity andarrogance.”1

I was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb in utero. My mother was 3-monthpregnant with me when the first atomic bomb in history was dropped on Hiroshima at8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. My father died on his way to his office near groundzero. Families, who were our relatives, came from around the city to take shelter atmy home, which escaped collapse. Our home was filled with about 30 people.
Only my father did not come home. On the day after the bomb attack, my pregnant
mother and my sisters looked for my father at ground zero. In the scorching heat andthe bad odor from the dead bodies, they looked around for him with compelling
feelings for him. But he was not found. Next day, they went to ground zero again andat last found his buckle, a bunch of keys, and the clasp of his coin purse.
I was born in February of next year, 1946, at home where 30 people lived. My motherand her seven children were left by my father. I grew up looking every day at thephoto of my father hanging in the room. My mother and brothers were breadwinners.
Aware that my life was given in return for my father’s death, not a single day went bythat I didn’t think about my father. The war has not ended because there still exist
2,500 nuclear warheads in the world. Today, 78 years after the atomic bombings, theHibakusha continue to be affected both physically and mentally in everyday life.
Although I was exposed to radiation during my mother’s pregnancy, I cannot escapethe damage. On the contrary, fetus could be affected by radioactivity to an
immeasurable degree. Hibakusha who were exposed to radiation in womb became
hibakusha before they were born. Some of those who were exposed to radiation inutero in the early stage of pregnancy near the hypocenter had microcephalus thatcaused physical or intellectual disabilities. I know a person who is taken care of byhis sister after the parents’ death. In his childhood, he was sent to the ABCC (AtomicBomb Casualty Commission) for examination, not for treatment. There was anelementary school which did a comparative study about children’s development in aclass that put together children who were exposed to radiation in utero and those
without such radiation exposure. I was very infuriated about children being treated as
guinea pigs. There was a person who killed himself leaving a letter to his parents,saying, “I will bid farewell to the days of illnesses. I also read a report saying, “Awoman who was exposed to radiation in utero had liver and eye diseases. Hermother died three years after the atomic bombing. Her father ran away from home.
She lived with her grandmother and two sisters. The 19-year-old woman committed
suicide due to the hardships and poverty she had to endure.” Today, there are about
6,600 people who were exposed to radiation in utero. The Hibakusha’s suffering,
uncertainty about their own illnesses, and anxiety about their children and2

grandchildren will never go away.
The atomic bombs annihilated two cities in an instant with the heat rays, blasts, andradiation, indiscriminately taking the lives of so many people. More than 140,000
people died in Hiroshima and about 70,000 people in Nagasaki by the end of theyear. Many people were crushed under collapsed houses or burned alive. All aroundwere people like ghosts walking with their peeled skin hanging down. Many people
were unable to rescue their children or parents or even to give water to people
wandering between life and death. The atomic bomb did not allow people to die ashumans or to live. More than 10 years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki, Hibakusha, who had been abandoned in the absence of any relief
measures, faced diseases, poverty and discrimination against them.
Nuclear deterrence is the State’s deception of the Hibakusha. It’s a tricky argument.
For the Hibakusha, nuclear deterrence stands for the atomic bomb and its mushroom
clouds.
The Bikini tragedy gave rise to the Movement against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs,
which encouraged the Hibakusha to meet I Nagasaki on August 10, 1956 to foundthe Japan Confederation of Atomic- and Hydrogen-Bomb Sufferers Organizations. In
the founding declaration, entitled “Message to the World,” we pledged one another to“reassure our will to save humanity from its crisis through the lessons learned fromour experiences, while at the same time saving ourselves.” Over the last 68 years
since then, we have held on to this pledge, telling people at home and internationallythat no one in the world should be forced to face what the Hibakusha haveexperienced—calling for no more Hibakusha, no more nuclear wars; for nuclear
weapons to be eliminated; and for State compensation for the A-bomb damage.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was adopted at a United
Nations on July 7, 2017, with 122 countries voting in favor after discussions at theUnited Nations and other international conferences. It is an historic treaty that isderived from the first resolution of the UN General Assembly calling for “theelimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all other major weapons
adaptable to mass destruction.” The TPNW came into force on January 22, 2021 andbecame an international law, rendering nuclear weapons illegal in all senses of theword.
It should be the mission of the Hibakusha and of everyone in the world to pass a blue
sky without nuclear weapons or war, on to our children around the world.
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Nihon Hidankyo is promoting the signature campaign urging the Japanese
government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We
will make the UN A-Bom Exhibition which was held last year, available online as partof the effort to inform the world of the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons and callfor their elimination.
Let us work together. Thank you.

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