Facing Inhumanity of A-Bomb Damage, Hibakusha Speak Out toAspire for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
KODAMA MichikoAssistant Secretary General
Japan Confederation of A-and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations(Nihon Hidankyo)
Chairperson, delegates and dear friends,
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak before you on behalf of the Hibakusha, A-Bombsurvivors.
On August 6, 1945, I was 7 years old, a second grader in primary school of Hiroshima. I was inside
the wooden school building and fortunately escaped major injuries.
On my way home, carried on the back of my father who came to the school to find me, I witnesseda hell on earth. I saw a man with his skin burned heavily, peeled and dangling. A mother with heavy
burns was carrying a baby, which was burned-black and looking like charcoal. Others with theireyeballs popped out or holding their protruding intestines in their hands frantically ran around, trying
to escape.
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9 instantly killed
so many people, and those who barely survived those days would eventually die one after anotherfrom the delayed effects of radiation. The atomic bombs did not allow the Hibakusha either to die orlive as humans.
The Hibakusha who miraculously lived out of those days had to suffer from survivor’s guilt andhellish scenes, sounds, voices and smells burned in their mind, while struggling to make a living andfacing prejudice and discrimination from the world. Hibakusha’s suffering is deep and still persisting.
Even after 73 years, “that day” will continue to haunt them.
So that no one in the world should ever experience that hell on earth, the Hibakusha have travelledaround the world to witness the damage and aftereffects of the atomic bombing, appealing, “No MoreHibakusha” and “Don’t fight nuclear war, and abolish nuclear weapons”.
Turning into the 2010s, our appeals seem to have reached the international community. The“unacceptable suffering and damage” caused by the use of nuclear weapons and the “intolerable
damage from the A-Bomb” have been accepted widely. This current eventually bore fruit at the U.N.
Conference which adopted the “Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” in July 2017.
Hibakusha rejoiced with each other to witness a door to the abolition of nuclear weapons finally1

opened. But we regret that the nuclear weapon states and their allies do not support this treaty.
Especially, we Hibakusha are furious with the government of Japan, the only country to haveexperienced the A-bombing in wartime, refusing to support the treaty. There is still a long and bumpy
road ahead to eliminate nuclear weapons.
I want to ask all the government delegations present today. Please implement without delay the“unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of theirnuclear arsenals”, agreed upon in the 2000 NPT Review Conference, and was reaffirmed in 2010.
The year 2020 will mark the 50th anniversary of the coming into force of the NPT. We ask you
to take a bold step to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, shifting to a security policy based on
mutual trust, not on nuclear deterrence with the assumption of using nuclear weapons.
We stand at the crossroads: whether to protect the blue planet or choose a path of destruction.
Without abolishing nuclear weapons we cannot defend people’s life and safety. As one of those who
experienced the nuclear destruction, I reiterate my call on you. Please work together with us toabolish nuclear weapons. Thank you.

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