February 3, 2013

The ministry of health and welfare on February 2 announced its intention to reduce benefits for Japanese returnees from China as well as for family members of Hansen’s disease patients, in accordance with the planned cuts in the livelihood protection standard.

The government provides 4,687 households of Japanese war orphans, who were abandoned in China at the end of WWII and returned to Japan several decades after the war, with benefits similar to the welfare assistance program.

The government also pays benefits to support the lives of 33 families of Hansen’s disease sanatorium residents and provides additional allowances to four Hansen’s disease patients not living in sanatoriums.

The ministry has no plan to do anything to help them but will slash their benefits in the same way as the cuts are being imposed in livelihood protection benefits.