Gallery: Disability-Japan 2004-03
The nature of the protests would take an academic journal article to explain in full. In the next pages, I'll try to explain in brief what is going on.
The Japanese government's disability policy is based on a social welfare model. All persons with physical, intellectual or mental disabilities in Japan carry a disability ID card that means that are eligible for a variety of government services including a disability pension, disability job quotas (large companies are required to fill at least 1.8% of their workforce with persons with disabilities), and various local social welfare services.
Unification
The protest had several planks. The man on the left is carrying a plank saying "Kaigo Hoken Tôgô Hantai" which means "We're against the unification [of disability welfare services] with the Long Term Care Insurance Plan."
Currently, disability welfare services are a separate budget from the Long Term Care Insurance Plan which is designed for the elderly in Japan. Although both provide similar attendant care through registered "home helpers," they are funded differently.
Disability services are not currently funded as an insurance or social security plan (i.e., people with disabilities do not pay premiums or copayments into the disability care system). The government wants to collapse the disability welfare system into the larger Long Term Care Insurance System. If it does this, this raises the distinct spectre that people with disabilities wiill be forced to pay co-payments or premiums. As the great majority of those with severe disabilities (the ones who require attendant care) are unable to secure jobs - regardless of the job quota law, they feel that this would be a severe burden on them.
