Recently, the Japanese mass media are busy reporting on the bullying of evacuated children at school. As a matter of fact, this kind of bullying has existed for quite a while. However, after a long silence, the mass media have suddenly started reporting about it. Often, it tends to be reduced to the common bullying found in the education system without reference to the particular environmental hazards caused by the nuclear accident. Akiko MORIMATSU analyzes the bullying from the viewpoint of the nuclear disaster evacuees. She was interviewed in “Minna no News Wonder” at Kansai TV on December 5th 2016.

3.11 evacuees’ voices

The courage to escape” and “the power to ask for help”



I am worried about what children will learn when they face a society incapable of helping  people who have fled from calamity and are asking for aid.
I think that when society does not show how it is possible to help, children won’t be able to have the “courage to escape” or to deploy the power to “ask for help” at school.

I’ve noticed the following through my exerience with the nuclear disaster.  We accept too easily that people facing danger will be able to escape without difficulty, and that it is natural to do so.

However, it is possible to create social situations which won’t allow for people to escape from danger, which won’t let them flee, or which pose such big obstacles that people can’t escape even when they are told that they are allowed to do so.  This has indeed been our situation for the last 5 years and 8 months.  I feel this way as an internal nuclear refugee.

This is how adult society is.  In this society in which our evasion is not fully accepted, children are exposed to the risk of bullying, which can happen anywhere unfortunately, amplified by incomprehension, indifference, prejudice and discrimination of the society.  I must say that they are facing even greater risks in response to the recent reporting by mass media.

At anytime, evacuee children are facing “the risk which is present here and now”.
This may be true for any children in this country.

And the “bullying” is not limited to children’s society.
It can be certainly said that there are second and third levels (TN 1) of damage from the nuclear disaster.

This is why society as a whole should accept the real situation of the nuclear disaster and set our eyes more directly on the truth.

The evacuees and evacuee children really exist all over Japan.
“They continue being evacuees because it is necessary to evacuate (TN2)”.

That is the truth and reality.
The only thing which counts is to
start from this fact and decide how society should deal with it.

(Akiko MORIMATSU evacuated with two children from Fukushima to Osaka)

Broadcasted by Kansai TV on December 5th 2016

Sources: 東日本大震災避難者の会　Thanks & Dream
Facebook of Akiko MORIMATU


(TN 1) For example, psychological, familial or social levels.
(TN2) because the environment is contaminated