Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Mar 20 2006 (IPS) – Revelations that a major hotel operator cheated on the law and scrapped barrier-free facilities, meant for the disabled, has shocked the public but not Kyoko Mita, 53, whose son is afflicted with Downs Syndrome.
This terrible case, she said, referring to the hotel owner who has been arrested, is just one of many examples in Japanese society that shows blatant disregard for the rights of the disabled here.
The homemaker, who is a volunteer for a group helping the physically disabled, says she and her husband live in constant uncertainty about the future of their disabled son who now works in a factory packing disposable chopsticks.
We wonder how he will survive without our care. There is no public or private system in Japan that guarantees his independence and security when he grows old, she explained.
Japan s technology expertise and wealth have not helped its disabled people, although they have struggled long to gain support and recognition for equal access in the country. A breakthrough was the passage of the Heart Building Law in 1994 and the Transport Accessibility Law in 2000, although the recent scandal has revealed their ineffectiveness.
Experts say the case of the hotel owner, that surfaced last month, contained several factors that show how, despite supportive legislation, tough obstacles remain for the handicapped in Japan.
The new scandal is an example of economic interests being more important than people. Which is why laws that are supposed to protect the rights of the handicapped also lack teeth in Japan and allow these scandals to surface all the time, explained Shoji Komatsu, spokesman for the Japanese Federation of Organisations of the Disabled Persons.
Indeed, when the owner of Toyoko Inn Company, Norimasa Nishida, offered an apology to disabled groups, at a press conference, he said he had dispensed with the mandatory facilities because the number of disabled people using my hotels was small.
The comments caused another uproar among the disabled who cited the discriminatory remark by Nishida as typical in Japan which is the reason why their rights have not been respected for so long.
Komatsu s organisation has handed a letter of protest to the government and is increasing pressure this month to promote better understanding of the needs of the physically disabled.
Japanese laws explicitly state that every person can live equally. The hotel owner has shown his disregard for this law and this must not be repeated, he said.
Under police questioning, Nishida revealed that he approved the changing of barrier-free facilities such as special parking space and rooms designed for the physically disabled, while aware he was breaking the Heart Building Law.
A term borrowed form architecture, barrier-free buildings are those which have no physical obstacles that might hamper the movement of disabled people. The term now extends to barriers of all kinds including those that refer to social and psychological disabilities.
A White Paper on the Disabled , brought out by the government in 1995, revolved around the barrier-free concept and pointed to how the country had been inconsiderate towards the disabled when setting up physical infrastructure.
According to Japanese media, the hotel owner developed and illegally renovated 82 hotels across Japan. Special parking lots were converted to business offices and large rooms designed for the disabled were made smaller, after local officials had finished with their inspections.
Satoru Misawa, spokesperson for Disabled Peoples International (DPI), Japan branch, says the law lacks stiff penalties on violations, such as a prison sentence, which is why Nishida had little qualms in going ahead with the illegal renovations.
Misawa, himself a wheelchair user, says Japanese laws do not provide enough protection. For example, stipulations in the building law contain such requirements such as elevators being necessary only for buildings that are used by more than 50,000 people.
The road for equal access is tough for the handicapped in Japan, he says. DPI members are now participants in the ad hoc Committee for the Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities in collaboration with the United Nations .
Misawa says the draft treaty, expected to be ready next summer, will generate interest and support in Japan where, he explains, improvement has been slow, especially in the big cities, in terms of services and access for the disabled
Under intense pressure from the disabled community- official data indicate the number is around 5 percent of Japan s 123 million population-there have been cases where the disabled have won against the country s discriminatory system.
Last month, the Tokyo district court ruled in favour of a 5-year-old girl who contested a decision to stop her from attending a public nursery because she has a disease in her windpipe that requires her to wear a tracheal tube.
Masao Endo, an official in the city government of Higashiyamato, in Tokyo, said the legal victory has forced the municipality to take steps to allow the girl, who was attending a school for the handicapped, support in the new nursery.
