Victims of Japan¡¯s now-defunct eugenics law are seeking ?15 million each in government compensation as part of a new relief bill set to be drafted later this year, their lawyers said Friday.

During a news conference, Naoto Sekiya, a lawyer of the Tokyo plaintiffs filing lawsuits nationwide said victims who were forced to undergo sterilization surgery should receive ?15 million in compensation, while their spouses should receive ?5 million.

Sekiya said that the payments should be made even if some of the victims and their spouses have died since the compensation applications were made, adding that a ¡°suitable amount of compensation¡± should be made for everyone who underwent abortion due to the now-defunct eugenics law. The bereaved family should be able to receive compensation even if the victim has died, he said.

Under the eugenics law, the government allowed doctors to perform nonconsensual sterilization surgery and abortion on individuals with hereditary, mental or physical disabilities.

The lawmakers¡¯ group is hoping to submit the bill, which will outline a fresh compensation framework, to the extraordinary parliamentary session to be convened in the fall.

A 2019 law allowed the state to offer a lump sum payment of ?3.2 million to each victim. The law avoids using the term compensation ¡ª which victims criticized as evading accountability ¡ª and the sum was much lower than the rough ?15 million figure that multiple rulings across Japan called for.

The top court ruling also criticized the ?3.2 million payment as too low.

On Friday, Justice Minister Ryuji Koizumi met with the dozens of victims at the ministry, apologizing for the ¡°intolerable ordeal¡± they had experienced.

Junko Iizuka, one of the plaintiffs at the meeting who had been demanding responsibility from the government since 1997, burst into tears midway into her speech, asking why the government took such a long time to do anything. She urged the government to resolve the matter as soon as possible.

A Supreme Court ruling in July ruled that the eugenics law was ¡°unconstitutional¡± and prompted the government to revise its stance and accept responsibility for what had happened. Earlier this week, the state reached a settlement with one of the plaintiffs, the first such case.

The plaintiffs¡¯ lawyers and the government are hammering out an agreement in which all the lawsuits filed nationwide will be settled under the same conditions, expected to be reached in a month or two, Sekiya said.