Preamble

We, the 59 participants of the 6th Hiroshima Junior International Forum, held from August 17th to 20th 2021, collaborated together online from 14 countries around the world. Our aim was to learn about and discuss the abolition of nuclear weapons as well as peacebuilding.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) came into force in January of this year. This will be an integral and essential step towards the abolition of nuclear weapons. However, the division between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states has yet to be overcome. In addition people around the world continue to be displaced by prolonged civil wars, terrorist attacks as well as natural disasters. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose further challenges for the population of the world.

Under such circumstances, we are acutely aware of the importance of the need for the younger generation to act upon what we have learned here. Furthermore, we are convinced of the need to deepen our understanding of the challenges facing us and the current efforts being undertaken to meet those challenges. Having strong support from the Hiroshima community, we, the youth of today, participated in this forum as an important step for achieving such goals. Spending four days together, we learned from experts in this field, shared our knowledge and gained inspiration from each other.

In this Hiroshima Declaration, we have compiled the results and fruits of our learning and discussion. The Hiroshima Declaration is a proposal to local and national government leaders, business leaders around the world and the rest of society, as well as an action plan for us, the participants.

 

<Challenges and Solutions for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons>

✧ Toward nuclear weapons abolition, we recognize the issue that some people are not fully aware of the horror and tragic reality of nuclear weapons.
✧ For this challenge, we suggest that we should tell the people about how nuclear weapons affect the lives of people, the environment and the devastation they cause.
✧ For this challenge, we recommend Hiroshima’s peace education programme be shared with other prefectures and countries around the world.

 

<Our Role for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons>

✧ We, the young people, commit ourselves to studying about nuclear weapons so as to be able to share it with the other young students like us.
✧ We, the young people, commit to share our knowledge about the dangers of nuclear weapons and the damage from them and to spread this message to people both inside and outside Japan by using social media and networking.
✧ We, the young people, promise to join national and international campaigns, especially petitions to demand the early conclusion of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.
✧ We, the young people, commit to take part in peace forums and volunteer as guides in the Peace Park and so as to never stop learning about nuclear weapons.

 

<The Role of Hiroshima for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons>

✧ We believe that Hiroshima can share its experiences and message to people all over Japan and the rest of the world.
✧ We believe that Hiroshima should give attractive and meaningful activities about the history of Hiroshima in World War Ⅱ.
✧ We expect Hiroshima to spread its message of peace education and the stories of the Hibakusha survivors with the rest of Japan and other countries around the world.

 

<Challenges and Solutions for Peacebuilding>

✧ Towards peacebuilding, we recognize some challenges, including economic disparity, civil war in poor countries, human rights violations, terrorism and improper justice.
✧ To solve the challenge of economic disparity, we recommend providing enough education and increasing the chance to get a good job.
✧ To solve the challenge of civil war in poor countries, we suggest raising poverty awareness to give them clues or ways on how to solve poverty, provide enough education and increase the chance of job employment.
✧ To solve the challenge of human rights violations, we suggest to enhance equality and counter discrimination.
✧ To solve the challenge of terrorism, we recommend finding the problems why people become terrorists, and promote and protect human rights instead.
✧ To solve the challenge of improper justice, we suggest improving the justice system or provide a proper justice process.

 

<Our Role for Peacebuilding>

✧ We, the young people, commit to join a fund-raising campaign or peace campaign to contribute something.
✧ We, the young people, commit to have opportunities to learn about each other more and know the way of thinking of each countries, respect the differences among us to avoid discrimination and to fight gender inequality.
✧ We, the young people, commit to learn and have interests about the issues and join some campaigns to have a deeper understanding in making peace.
✧ We, the young people, commit to sharing our knowledge and information by using social media with critical thinking skills.
✧ We, the young people, commit to have a good manners, attitudes and intense understanding of everyone else’s opinion and thoughts.

 

<The Role of Hiroshima for Peacebuilding>

✧ We believe that Hiroshima can make opportunities for people all over the world to enjoy learning about the issues related to peacebuilding. (e.g. anime, manga, music, movies, theatre play etc.)
✧ We believe that Hiroshima should provide its own example of rebuilding and regeneration as an example of reconstruction to other countries. The reconstruction of Hiroshima will become hope for countries which are in reconstruction.
✧ We expect Hiroshima to make a fund-raising campaign and appeal to the importance of building peaceful communities to help the youngsters know the basic ways to spread or apply peace.

 

Closing

We participants are now highly aware that specialized knowledge is fundamental for us to understand the challenges that we face and to be able to propose effective solutions. We have also reaffirmed that it is important to mutually respect each other while discussing issues and deriving solutions. While we recognized the importance of outreach, we also grew to realize the strategic relevance that we should spread our message by using the appropriate tools and methods.

We know that our responsibilities do not end with the announcement of the Hiroshima Declaration. We know we need to put the action plan presented here into practice. When we interact with people to share our suggestions, we know we need to collaborate with like-minded people, but we also need to have dialogues with people who hold different perspectives and opinions to seek better solutions for the whole of society. Through such efforts, we believe that we can achieve nuclear abolition, peacebuilding, and the resolution for other fundamentally vital issues.

Now all of us on earth face many challenges and difficulties. It is time for us to take decisive and concrete action. Understanding the limits of our power but the importance of our responsibilities, we hereby make this declaration and stake our determination to achieve it.

 

August 20, 2021