Komeito’s Hirabayashi calls on gov’t to share hibakusha experience worldwide

February 18 , 2025

On February 17, Komeito House of Representatives member Akira Hirabayashi urged Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s administration to expand the sharing of the hibakusha experience with as large an audience as possible. He recommended that Japan invite world leaders to visit the atomic bombing sites in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He also called for the government to enhance and continue the Youth Leader Fund for a World without Nuclear Weapons, an innovative learning program launched in 2023 by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs with Japanese government funding.

Hirabayashi made his proposals at the Lower House budget committee’s intensive deliberations attended by the prime minister. The Komeito lawmaker further cited the benefits of an Asian version of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), saying it would help in preventing conflicts in their earliest stages by resolving misunderstandings under a framework of cooperative security. Ishiba expressed keen interest in Komeito’s proposed framework but said it would need to be examined further to determine its specifics.

Hirabayashi then reiterated Komeito’s position that the government should take part as an observer at the third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to be held in New York in March.

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