This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.” Nihon Hidankyo was founded in 1956 to promote the social and economic rights of all Hibakusha, or survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and ensure that globally no one has to endure the “catastrophe that befell the Hibakusha.”
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) congratulated the winner and called on all countries to heed its call to abolish nuclear weapons.
“This is fantastic news and so well deserved,” Melissa Parke, executive director of ICAN, said. “We congratulate Nihon Hidankyo. It is extremely important that the hibakusha—the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—have been recognized for their lifelong work to bring the world’s attention to what nuclear weapons actually do to people when they are used. It is particularly significant that this award comes at this time when the risk that nuclear weapons will be used again is as high, if not higher, as it has ever been.”
Nihon Hidankyo is a grassroots movement that became the largest and most widely representative Hibakusha organization in Japan, according to The Nobel Prize website. Through the years, the organization used personal witness statements to help deliver a stark message regarding the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that come with the use of nuclear weapons.
“ICAN is honored to have been able to work alongside Nihon Hidankyo and the hibakusha to push for the total elimination of nuclear weapons,” Parke said. “Their testimonies and tireless campaigning have been crucial to progress on nuclear disarmament in general and the adoption and entry into force of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in particular.”
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed over 215,000 people and harmed thousands more. Most of the hibakusha alive today, who were children at the time of the bombings, average 86 years old.
ICAN calls on the countries who have yet to join the TPNW to reject nuclear weapons and join in the motto, “No more Hibakusha.”
“We call on the nuclear-armed states and their allies which support the use of nuclear weapons, including of course Japan, to heed their call to abolish these inhumane weapons to make sure what they have been through never happens again,” Parke said.
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