A/HRC/35/NGO/X

United Nations

General AssemblyDistr.: GeneralXX May 2017
English only

Human Rights Council
Thirty-five session
Agenda item 3
Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including theright to development

Written statement* submitted by Human Rights Now, a nongovernmental organization in special consultative status
The Secretary-General has received the following written statement which is circulated inaccordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31.
[15 May 2017]*GE.17-This written statement is issued, unedited, in the language(s) received from the submitting
non-governmental organization(s).

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The Human Rights Situation of People Affected by theFukushima Nuclear DisasterThe nuclear accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011 continues to pose serious risks to the lifeand health of affected persons. The recent end of compensation and housing support for evacuees has forced many toreturn to risky areas despite their concerns about risk, inconsistent with their right to health and UN recommendations
and guidelines. Human Rights Now (HRN), a Tokyo-based international human rights NGO, calls on the Japanese
government to maintain sufficient support to evacuees for as long as they need to protect their life, health, andwellbeing.

1. Japan’s Policy to End Evacuees’ Financial and Housing Support and Evacuees’ Pressure
to Return to Unsafe Areas
Approximately 80,000 people from Fukushima prefecture remain evacuated due to the 2011 nuclear
accident.1 In late March and early April, 2017, the government of Japan lifted evacuation orders for all areaswith exposure levels under 20 mSv/year, meaning tens-of-thousands of evacuees will lose their eligibility forcompensation payments in March 2018.2 This group joins the approximately 32,000 evacuees never underevacuation orders who never received compensation payments. 3 Furthermore, Fukushima Prefecture ended
its free housing support program for evacuees not receiving compensation inside Fukushima Prefecture inMarch 2017.4 These decisions were made without sufficient consultation with evacuees, and the ending of
the support will have significantly negative effects on them.
The major concern with the policy is that the 20mSv/year standard for lifting evacuation orders issignificantly higher than the ICRP recommended standard for public exposure of 1mSv/year. 5 Surveys ofthese areas show large portions insufficiently decontaminated for long-term habitation and hotspots near or
above even the 20mSv/year standard.6 With the ending of compensation/housing support, many evacuees
expressed concern that they will not be able to afford to stay in their current housing situation, and they feelpressured to return to areas where high levels of radiation exposure may remain.7

2. Evacuees’ Financial Difficulties Driving their Pressure to Return to Unsafe Areas
Evacuees losing their financial support have expressed that one year, when their compensation support ends,
is not enough time to become financially secure and afford housing.8 For evacuees living in temporary
government housing, 70% in a 2016 survey stated they have been unable to find where to live after thehousing support ends in March 2017.91

Fukushima Prefecture, 30 Jan. 2017, http://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal/shinsai-higaijokyo.html
Reconstruction Agency, http://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat1/sub-cat1-1/160809_mitinoritomitoshi.pdf.
3Hiroyuki, 2 Jan. 2017, http://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/151985.
4Mainichi, 11 Mar. 2016, http://mainichi.jp/articles/20160311/ddm/010/040/006000c.
5ICRP Publication 60 (1990 Recommendations), Ann. ICRP 21; ICRP Publication 103 (2007
Recommendations), Ann. ICRP 37.
6
Greenpeace, 4 March 2016, http://www.greenpeace.org/japan/ja/library/publication/20160304_report/.
7
Japan Times, 11 March 2016, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/11/national/nuclear-refugees-tell-distrustpressure-return-fukushima/#.WJFt_Pl9601.
8Flores, 9 Mar 2016, Japan Times, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2016/03/09/voices/five-yearsfukushima-evacuees-voice-lingering-anger-fear-distrust/#.WRU-WcaZFPY
9Mainichi, 26 Mar. 2016, http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160326/p2a/00m/0na/012000c.
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A February 2017 report suggested that, at the current rate of evacuees finding permanent resettlement (evenbefore support ended), there would still be around 60,000 Fukushima evacuees displaced by 2021. 10 The
ending of housing and financial support will only exacerbate evacuees’ difficulties to find permanent
settlement and secure their livelihoods.
Evacuees that remain in temporary housing for prolonged periods, due to lack of support, remain uncertain
about their future, which negatively impacts their mental and physical health, and delays their economic
recovery. 11 The financial situation of one-third of evacuees is “worse than normal”, 12 and evacuees in
temporary housing are subject to particularly low employment rates and earnings. 13 Evacuees forced toreturn to or always remaining in evacuation-order-lifted areas also face serious difficulties rebuilding theirfinancial situation to afford moving away due to the lack of services, social networks, and work in formerly
evacuated areas.14 Despite these needs, the Japanese government has focused on reconstruction anddecontamination to actually encourage evacuees to return to risky areas, and its ending of necessarycompensation/housing support only exacerbates evacuees’ inability to leave. 15

3. Evacuees’ Physical and Mental Health Problems
Evacuees pressured to return to formerly evacuated areas under the dangerously high 20 mSv/year standard
face risks of illness from long-term radiation exposure, as risk from radiation exposure is cumulative, withpopulations such as pregnant women, children, and girls particularly vulnerable. 16
The Fukushima Health Management Survey reported 145 confirmed thyroid cases (and another 38
suspected) as of December 2016, an increase of 44 confirmed cases since the previous study.17 Despite
these findings, the prefectural government has not acknowledged the impact of radiation on children,and the national government has failed to establish free, periodic, and comprehensive health checks
for affected persons outside biennial examinations of exposed Fukushima children.
Evacuees remaining in prolonged displacement due to a lack of support also face physical and mental healthproblems, including high suicide rates, due to stress and anxiety caused by forced movement, long periods inshelters or temporary housing, lack of medical services and community, distrust of government
misinformation, uncertainty about their futures, and public stigmatization and fear. 18
Fukushima evacuees have been reported to suffer from higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder anddepression longer and more severe than other evacuated areas.19 A high percent of evacuees also live aloneor separated from their full families, increasing their stress and vulnerability. 20 A June 2016 survey showed
10IDMC, “Recovery Postponed”, 6 Feb. 2017, at 5, http://www.internaldisplacement.org/publications/2017/recovery-postponed-idmc-case-study-february-2017. The report analyzed all
displaced persons from Tohoku and computed 100,000 (of 134,000 currently), of which around 60,000 (of 80,000currently) would be the proportional number from Fukushima.
11Id, at 6.
12Fukushima Medical University (FMU), 6 June 2016,
http://fmu-global.jp/?wpdmdl=1641.
13
Yamasaki, et al., April 2016, http://goo.gl/mxtt5l
14
IDMC, supra, note 10, at 8.
15
Id.
16
Greenpeace, http://www.greenpeace.org/japan/Global/japan/pdf/Uequal-impact-en.pdf
17
FMU, 27 Dec. 2016, http://fmu-global.jp/survey/the-25th-prefectural-oversight-committee-meeting-for-fukushimahealth-management-survey/.
18
WNA, “Fukushima Accident”, https://goo.gl/b1u0hj.
19
Smith, 161-175, http://goo.gl/YWxm0g
20
FMU, supra, note 12.

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that 30% of Fukushima evacuees suffer anxiety from fears of radiation, 21 and another 2016 survey reported
evacuees suffering high rates of sleeping disorders, anxiety, loneliness, and depression. 22 Those currently
living in formerly evacuated areas also expressed serious isolation due to the lack of services, family, andcommunity, and there has been a high level of “stress-related” deaths in these areas.

4. Discrimination and Bullying
Fukushima evacuees continue to face discrimination in the form of “radiation stigma” due to public fears
about radiation, which creates additional stress for them. One form of this is serious bullying that evacuee
children from Fukushima face in schools. 23

5. Inconsistencies with Human Rights and UN Guidelinesi.

The Right to Health and Grover & HRC Recommendations

The Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Anand Grover, submitted a report to the 23rd Human Rights
Council recommending that the government of Japan only permit return of evacuees to evacuated areas whenradiation doses had been reduced, as far as possible, to levels below 1mSv/year, and that all persons living inareas with higher exposures be provided with sufficient medical care for a long duration. 24 In 2014, theHuman Rights Committee (HRC) further recommended the government “lift the designation ofcontaminated locations as evacuation areas only where the radiation level does not place the residents
at risk.”25ii.

UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement

Principle 28 of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement note that governments have a duty toestablish conditions for internally displaced persons (IDPs) to return safely to their homes or to resettle
voluntarily in another area, which entails a duty not to coerce or prevent return, local integration, orsettlement elsewhere.26 And under Principle 15 (d), states must not force IDPs to return or resettle in any
place where their life, safety, or health would be at risk. The government’s decisions to lift evacuation orders
in unsafe areas and end compensation support pressuring evacuees to return is inconsistent with theseprinciples.

6. Recommendations
Human Rights Now calls on the government of Japan to: Provide necessary financial and housing support to Fukushima evacuees as long as needed to ensure
their ability to freely choose where they will live without pressure to return to risky areas; Reverse the decision to cease free housing support for Fukushima evacuees;
 Implement the recommendations of Mr. Anand Grover’s 2013 report and the 2014 UN Human Rights
Committee concluding observations, and respect the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement;
21Id.
Fukushima Prefecture, 27 April 2015, https://goo.gl/SHKC3l
23
Asahi Shinbun, 16 Nov. 2016, http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASJCH5GJYJCHULOB02P.html.
24
HRC, 2 May 2013, A-HRC-23-41-Add3,
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session23/A-HRC-23-41-Add3_en.pdf.
25
HRC, 20 Aug. 2014, CCPR/C/JPN/CO/6.
26
https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/GuidingPrinciplesDispl.pdf.
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Reform health monitoring policies and conducting comprehensive, long-term health check-ups for
persons living in areas where radiation exceeds 1mSv/year;
Immediately accept and coordinate official visits of mandate holders to Japan to investigate the humanrights situation of affected people of Fukushima nuclear accident.

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