children

Watari District is one of the most severely polluted areas in Fukushima City. Since high levels of radiation exceeding 2μSv/hour (2 microsievert/hr) are still observed across the District, Watari residents are urging the government to help them evacuate at least children until decontamination is completed. While going forward with the project, we will continue to lobby the government to change its evacuation policy. The government criterion for evacuation, 20millieSv/year, is nearly four times as high as the safe limit in radiation-controlled areas. The evacuation criterion itself needs to be reconsidered.

While the Japanese government defines 20mSv/year as a criterion for designating special evacuation points, NGOs have demanded that the government should establish a broader, “optional evacuation area” to allow people to decide whether or not to evacuate for themselves. Since the Japanese government is unwilling to change its evacuation policy, however, people in Fukushima, especially residents of Watari District (Fukushima City), have suffered enormously.

In the Watari district of Fukushima City which is 60 kilometer from the Fukushima nuclear plant, 16,000 people of 6,700 households are exposed to high levels of radiation exceeding 2μSv/hour. However, given the lack of information from the government and the absence of proper financial compensation for evacuees, many families are not able to move out of the contaminated area for a variety of reasons such as work or school.

The government has delayed evacuation of children and pregnant women with the promise of decontamination. This policy can be said to violate human rights. At this very moment, children in Watari District live, study, and play in the severely polluted environment. Here, it is crucial to facilitate their temporary evacuation until satisfactory decontamination is accomplished.

No groups have launched “POKA-POKA Project for Fukushima Children” in response to the dire situation in Watari District. The project is jointly managed by Save Watari Kids, Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation, Citizens against the Fukushima Aging Nuclear Power Plants, and Friends of the Earth Japan. The project focuses on Watari District as well as Onami, Nankodai, and Oguraji and aims to lower radiation exposure for children of families that have to stay in the polluted areas for a variety of reasons.

The group will organize trips to a location in west part of Fukushima City and 30 minutes by car from Watari district, where recorded radiation rates are much lower. They also try to subsidize costs of travel and accommodation for families in Watari district. This will allow children to spend time away from high levels of radiation as well as support the local communities and help economic recovery. We hope that many families can take part in this project. While doing so, we will continue to lobby the government to change its evacuation policy that puts citizens at risk. This is not only Watari’s problem. The problem is also relevant to Fukushima and, indeed, Japan as a whole.

Contact: Kanna Mitsuta, Eri Watanabe, Akiko Yoshida at Friends of the Earth Japan.
3-30-8-1F Ikebukuro Toshima-ku, Tokyo 171-0014, Japan.
Tel: +81 3 6907 7217
Email: yoshida[at]foejapan.org
Web: http://www.foejapan.org

The International Journal on Cancer, published in its January 2012 magazine a new study from France, establishing a very clear correlation between the frequency of acute childhood leukemia and proximity to nuclear power stations. It confirms the study conducted in Germany by the Cancer Registry in Mainz in 2008, which had reached the same conclusion.

This rigorous epidemiological study is called "Childhood leukemia around French nuclear power plants – the Geocap study, 2002-2007", and conducted by a team from INSERM (Institut national de la sante et de la recherche medicale),  IRSN (Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire) and the national child cancer registry of the hospital of Villejuif, demonstrates for the period 2002-2007 in France the doubling  of occurrence of childhood leukemia: the increase is up to 2.2 among children under 5 years.

This study again confirms an earlier German study (KiKK-Study Dec 2007) that the incidence of child leukemia more than doubles near nuclear power plants for children below the age 5 living within a 5 kilometer radius of nuclear power plants, compared to children living further then 20 kilometers from a nuclear power plant.

The nation wide study includes 2753 child leukemia cases diagnosed between 2002 and 2007 and a control group of 30,000. The addresses were geocoded around 19 nuclear power plants.

This is in line with a USA study by the National Academy Press, U.S., which argues that women and children are at significantly greater risk of suffering and dying from radiation-induced cancer than a man exposed to the same dose of ionizing radiation.

Current regulation of radiation and nuclear activity ignores the disproportionately greater harm to both women and children. Radiation harm includes not only cancer and leukemia, but reduced immunity and also reduced fertility, increases in other diseases including heart disease, birth defects including heart defects, other mutations.

Sascha Gabizon, international director of the Women's environment and health network WECF says "studies in Russia have shown that radioactive contamination of pregnant women in Chelyabinsk, Russia, lead to mutations of chromosomes, being transmitted into the 3rd and 4th generation of children". Gabizon: "victims of nuclear energy will never be compensated for, as the nuclear industry pays artificially low insurance costs, which means the tax-payer and future generations pay both economically as with their health. Nuclear energy is highly subsidized, the price of nuclear energy does not include the irreversible and long-term damage caused throughout the nuclear fuel cycle". In the light of these finding Gabizon calls for immediate measure for the protection of the population, especially small children, including legislation and support for resettlement of all families currently living in the vicinity of nuclear power plants.

WECF is a unique network of over 100 grassroots women and environment organizations worldwide, working in multi-sector partnerships demonstrating sustainable development alternatives at the local level, and sharing lessons learned and promoting sustainable policies at the global level.

For years, "Sortir du nucleaire" has seen the IRSN discrediting work in all epidemiological studies showing an impact of nuclear facilities on health. Sortir du nucleaire would therefore on this all too rare occasion like to congratulate the IRSN for participating in this epidemiological study. "Even in non-accidental situation, the proof is in the pudding -nuclear technology does not belong in a civilized world."

The study is available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.27425/abstract

Sources: Press release Reseau Sortir du nucleaire, 11 January 2012 / WECF press release, 17 January 2012 
Contact: Chantal Van den Bossche, WECF press:
Email: chantal.vandenbossche[at]wecf.eu
Tel: +31 6 2812 9992
Web: www.wecf.eu