Japanese atomic bomb survivor movement Nihon Hidankyo wins Nobel Peace Prize

The Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo has won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize “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”. The Japanese organisation represents survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Formed in 1956, Nihon Hidankyo is the largest and most influential organisation of atomic bomb survivors in Japan. Its mission has been to raise global awareness of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. By sharing their personal stories of the devastation they experienced in August 1945, the Hibakusha – the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – have helped shape the international “nuclear taboo,” a powerful norm stigmatising the use of nuclear arms as morally unacceptable.

"This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the peace prize 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," the Nobel Peace Prize committee said in a statement following the announcement.

The Peace Prize was awarded in Osho, Norway.

The Nobel Peace Prize was presented a day after South Korean author Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”