Futsukaichi Rest Home

Futsukaichi Rest Home (二日市保養所, Futsukaichi Hoyōjo) was a specialized medical facility located in the town of Futsukaichi (present day-Chikushino, Fukuoka), Japan, set up in 1946 by the Ministry of Welfare after World War II. It operated for 1.5 years and performed abortions before they were legalized in 1947, and treated sexually transmitted diseases (STDs, such as syphilis or gonorrhea) in rape survivors who were repatriated from China or Korea.

Futsukaichi clinic, or Futsuka’ichi Sanatorium are some of its other designations in English.

After the end of World War II, Japanese citizens who had migrated to occupied areas had to return to mainland Japan. During the repatriation from China or Korea, they were vulnerable to violence, exposure, and malnutrition.

One of the pioneers at organizing medical help for these refugees was anthropologist Seiichi Izumi [ja], who is sometimes credited with being the actual figure who later created the Repatriate Aid Society's "medical corp" (救療部, kyūryō bu), the people who operated the Futsukaichi clinic.

In the immediate postwar Korea, he organized a network of mobile medical teams to help Japanese refugee in transit from Seoul to Busan. The teams were also posted at major entry ports for repatriates in Japan. Izumi called this network the "mobile medical bureau" (移動医療局, Idō Iryōkyoku), although it carried the English name of MRU (Medical Relief Union). It was sanctioned by the Allied troops. This MRU is considered the precursor to the kyūryō bu medical corp that later staffed the Futsukaichi clinic.

The Pusan Nihonjin sewakai [ja] ("Busan Relief Society", "Busan Homeland Japanese Support Organization", etc.,) and the MRU have been conducting surveys on the medically examined women refugees since December 1945. The figures for March 1946 showed that out of the 885 women surveyed, roughly 10 percent had been sexually assaulted (70 rape survivors and 19 STD-infected individuals). Izumi was aware of the scale of problem he would be faced with.

The Futsukaichi clinic was started by a group of doctors at Japanese imperial university in Seoul and activists who after returning to Japan wanted to assist the refugees, with the help of a semi-governmental Repatriate Aid Society aligned with the Japanese foreign ministry.

The staff of the former Keijō Imperial University School of Medicine in Seoul had been treating Japanese refugees stranded in Korea, but most were back in Japan by December 1945, and wished to continue their services by treating the displaced repatriates. Also referred to as the "Seoul Group", these doctors negotiated how to achieve this purpose with the Repatriate Aid Society (在外同胞援護会, Zaigai dōhō engokai; "The aid society for overseas Japanese"), an extra-departmental body of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As end-result, the Seoul Group became integrated as the Society's medical corp.