1. Present Status of Participation in Sports by Disabled Population in Japan
As of the year 2000, the total of physically, mentally, and psychologically challenged population is accounted for 5% of total population in Japan, and the percentage of elderly population is increasing rapidly.
The participation percentages of disabled population are, 20~40% in physically challenged, 40~50% in mentally deficit population. Even though the participation percentage of disabled population is increasing, there is not in the circumstance that ANY disabled population can be able to participate in sports easily.
2. The History of Disabled Population Sports in Japan
Taking the opportunity of hosting the athletic event for physically challenged athletes in Tokyo in 1951, since then and before 1963, almost all prefectures started to host the athletic events for physically challenged athletes.
Moreover, Disabled Persons Basic Law for Persons with Disabilities was established in 1970, and since then, the sports policy for disabled population has been reinforced gradually. The budget also had been increased gradually, but the tendency of increasing has been stopped since year of 2000, and the budget was decreased partially in 2003.
The Japanese Sports Association For the Disabled is the preside organization for disabled athletes in Japan.
3. The Issues on Disabled Sports and the Law in Japan
3-1 The issues with promoting sports for disabled population and relating policies and laws.
Even though people do not have disability, there is still some population who cannot participate in sports because of the financial reason, time management reason, psychological reason, and physical conditioning reason. All the more, the population with disabilities has more factors that retard from participating in sports. The retarding factors could be the financial factors, the environmental factors such as facilities, and the human resources factors such as coaches
3-2 The issue of the fairness in disability and events
The needs of ramified classification are high in the event for disabled athletes because there are variety of disabilities and its level.
Moreover, in the sports for disabled, there are more problems raise than the sports for ordinary athletes because the disabled athletes use not only the equipments that are used in ordinary sports, but also the complementary equipments (written as equipment that includes normal and complementary equipments below) for their disabilities, such as the wheel chair.
3-3 The issues of sports for disabled and the doping.
Many of the disabled athletes have need to take medicine continuously for the treatments of their disabilities, and the use of prohibited substance for therapeutic use is the immediate issues for them more than ordinary athletes. Even though the elite athletes, they do not have enough knowledge about anti-doping activities and doping control, and there are needs for education on anti-doping activities.
3-4 The arbitration cases by the Japan Sports Arbitration Agency on sports for disabled athletes.
In 2003, Japan has established the arbitration system*2 that athletes can be able to make a statement against the decision (the decision made during the games/matches are exceptional) that is made by the national federations or related organization related to the competitions and administrations.
As of today, there are 7 arbitration cases completed, and 2 of them are related to the sports for disabled.
4. Conclusion
I have generalized the present situation and its issues on sports for disabled and related laws. In these days, the social coverage for the unfortunate such as elderly population, disabled population is decreasing in Japan.
There are still a lot of issues that need to be solved in sports for disabled, and moreover, we are facing to new issues. There is the needs of research and impulsion of the policies for the promotion in sports for disable athletes.