Due to the difficulty of receiving sympathy from the public, the A-bomb survivors have been left abandoned in the society which expresses no interest in our plight. Third, in 1957, the Atomic Bomb Medical Treatment Law was enacted in Japan, which made it possible for the sufferers to receive treatment. But this law was not applied to the Korean victims, and we have been left without any care and attention. The worst error of Japan in the post-war days is that Japan has not made honest apology or given effective compensation to the victims for its aggression and atrocities in South Korea and other Asian countries. The damage we, the A-bomb victims in Korea, have suffered is the damage Japan inflicted on us during its colonial rule and the war of aggression.
Japan bears a responsibility to make an apology and to repair the damage it caused.
The State of Japan as a whole must take this post-war responsibility. Whatever form of state compensation, therefore, it should be provided to us. The Hibakusha Aid Law enacted in Japan in 1994 does not have any provisions to distinguish the sufferers by nationality or residential conditions. So this law must be applied to the survivors living abroad. To achieve this, in solidarity with citizens' groups in Japan, we are developing the citizens' movement and carrying on a court struggle for war compensation from Japan and the application of the Aid Law to A-bomb survivors living in South Korea.