Demographic crisis in Japan

In Japan, husband's permission is required for sterilization - now the law can be changed

Japan has one of the world's strictest sterilization laws. Now five women are fighting to have the law reviewed and for women's rights to be enshrined in the constitution, AFP reports.

According to the criticized law, a woman must have multiple children or medical risks from a pregnancy to be allowed to voluntarily choose to be sterilized. In addition, the husband or wife's consent to the procedure is required.

The lawsuit is directed against the Japanese state and the verdict will be announced next week. The women behind the "We Are Not Womb Mothers" movement want sterilization to be considered a personal decision.

- The law is a legacy of the wartime era when women were viewed as resources for population growth, and in practice means that all fertile women are treated as potential mothers, says Michiko Kameishi, lead lawyer in the case, to AFP.

At the same time, the government has defended the current system as a protection against women's "future regrets".

Kazane, 29, had surgery in the US: "Isn't a uterus"

29-year-old Kazane Kajiya from Japan went to the US two years ago to have a voluntary sterilization, she tells AFP. The reason is the law in her home country that severely limits the possibility of the procedure.

She is one of five women behind the lawsuit against the Japanese state that is trying to get the country to remove the strict laws.

Kazane Kajiya says that she has never wanted to have children and that she has long felt that society expected her to become a mother anyway. She describes how she was told at a young age that her body was primarily meant to bear children.

- It felt as if I had been forced to get on a train on the way to motherhood. Through the operation, "I broke the windows and threw myself off the train". We are not wombs, we are people.