After the wake of World War II, most of the children became orphaned or were left behind by their families who repatriated from Northeast China to Japan. These children were later adopted by the Chinese families and reared with no knowledge of their Japanese ancestry.
Nine years after the normalization of Sino Japanese relations, in 1981, the Japanese government began an assistance program aimed to reunite the orphans with their biological parents in Japan.
However, since the orphans spent major portion of their life in China, it became difficult for them to assimilate into the Japanese culture, Chinese families adopted more than 4,000 of the Japanese orphans.
About 6,300 people came back after ties between the two states were normalized in 1972, including 2,500 who were under age 12 when they were abandoned in China, according to Health Ministry official Hayato Igarashi.
Although the government took various measures to incorporate them into their original culture however, when the people starting claiming their due right of compensation, they got disbarment from the government.
Nearly 2,000 ‘war orphans’ have sued the government in lawsuits that were pending at several local courts across Japan.
Futile efforts:
1. Some 65 petitioner condemned the Japanese government for the delay, accused them that they did not begin looking for them until 1975, and gave no financial help until 1994.
2. In 2001, nearly 2,000 returned Japanese orphans have filed suits in many Japanese cities, charging the Japanese government with failing to repatriate them early enough and asking for compensation.
3. In 2005, compensation claims by 32 people were discarded by a court in Osaka.
4. In February 2006, the claims of three people were rejected by the Tokyo district court.
Currently:
Most of the returned Japanese orphans lived an impoverished life, at the bottom of Japanese society.
Many Japanese regard the orphans as Chinese and would look down upon them.
Finally, in a recent move, the court has passed legislation according to which, the government would have to pay 460 yen for their safeguard.
Most of the people have applauded the move. Now let us see how far this compensation would benefit the deprived natives.
