Justice Minister’s Award
Evacuation of People with Mental Disabilities during Disasters
Satoshi Ishikawa, Seventh Grade (first-year of three grades)
Kariya City Asahi Junior High School, Aichi Prefecture
My younger brother was born with autism as a mental disability. Since he is unable to
speak very well, I sometimes cannot understand what he says, and in such cases I have
him explain what he wants to say by writing or drawing, the latter of which he is good at.
Because I have lived with him since he was born, I seldom become confused, even if he
gets into a mentally unstable condition in his everyday life at home. I think that my
younger brother is very honest. But I have to care a little more about him when we go
out, because he sometimes utters inarticulate sounds and makes other people turn toward
him. When we are walking, I always hold his hand firmly to prevent him from suddenly
breaking into a run. Since he often tries to touch various things, I keep an eye on what his
other hand is doing while we are walking. Because of this, my family and I do not like
going to crowded places very much.
I have recently learned about disaster preparedness at school. For our family, a
nearby elementary school is our designated evacuation center. I have become very
worried that, in the event of a disaster, my family might have difficulties staying at the
evacuation center.
I tried searching the Internet for information about how families with autistic children
respond to disasters. When I searched the web by entering the search words "autism,"
"disaster" and "evacuation," I found that the things I was concerned about had really
happened.
What I found was "the isolation of families with autistic children". Such families
were unable to go to evacuation centers in the aftermath of the Great Hanshin-Awaji
Earthquake, the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake, the Great East Japan Earthquake, or the
recent Kumamoto Earthquake. Although I had vaguely anticipated this, I was shocked by
the overly large number of such cases, and became very sad about it.
In the case of a family with a severely autistic child living near the nuclear power
plant in Fukushima Prefecture, although they knew an evacuation center had been opened
near their house after the Great East Japan Earthquake, they refrained from going there
because they thought their child might be sensitive to the changing environment and
crowd and respond with panic. Since relief supplies were delivered only to the
evacuation center, which they could not enter, the four family members spent their days
trying to feed themselves with the small amount of food that was in their house while
feeling scared that the medicine they relied on for suppressing epileptic seizures might
run out. In addition to them, some other families were also unable to go to evacuation
centers and stayed in their cars. Some people also faced difficulties because they were
unable to leave their disabled children alone to go shopping. It also seems too hard for
such people to stand in line for a long time at evacuation centers to get relief supplies.
These families were all unable to go to evacuation centers for the same reason. The
major barrier was "the tacit agreement" among people staying at the centers "to stay
quiet so people could sleep". They were unable to enter evacuation centers because they
were worried that their children might "bother other people" by getting panicked and
making loud noises. I understand such feeling of these families very well. My family
may have no choice but to act in the same way. I think, however, that this is a sad thing
and a wrong thing.
I know that some people are striving to prepare facilities called "welfare evacuation
centers," following calls from families who have experienced disasters. When I asked my
mother, she said that my city was also preparing an evacuation center of that kind.
However, according to her, our family has been told to try the ordinary local evacuation
center first because the welfare evacuation center can only accommodate a limited
number of people. I thought that was strange; a welfare evaluation center is supposed to
exist because local evacuation centers are difficult for some people to stay in. The
welfare evacuation center is far from our house, and we cannot go there without crossing
a broad river. I became worried that our family could be isolated if we could not use a car
or the river rose.
Although I looked for information to alleviate my concerns, I became more and more
worried. But I considered solutions in my own way, and have reached one: to have a kind
of welfare evacuation room prepared in the local evacuation center. We would be able to
take shelter in such a room without having to worry. However, I am worried that the lack
of space at the local evacuation center may not allow it, because I suppose that even
ordinary people will be beset by worries when staying at the evacuation center, and will
become less tolerant. I think that it will be hard in such a situation for us to make other
people understand that autistic children’s behavior does not come about out of selfishness
but is a characteristic of their disability.
I think that it is difficult for me to make other people understand my younger brother
after a disaster occurs. Therefore, I have realized that I have to make efforts in my
everyday life to make my brother understood better by people in the local community. He
is never pitiful, but enjoys living and is able to do many things better than me.
I hope to help many more people around us learn about autism as a disability. I also
have learned that our family has to more actively share information about the existence
of a child with disabilities with people in the local community. It occurred to me that, if
everyone cooperated a little more in devising good methods, people with disabilities
could also live without worry in the local community.