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, first, we recognize distrust and arm races between countries are the basis of the problem. If we cannot solve this, nuclear weapons will continue to be built thereby increasing the risk of them being activated.
Secondly, we acknowledge the importance of all of the nations to sign treaties related to nuclear weapons. In order to abolish nuclear weapons, it is crucial for every single country on this planet to cooperate.
✧ For these challenges, we suggest sharing the Hibakusha testimonies because as listeners of them, we feel that the words coming from the victims are most powerful and touch people’s hearts. We truly believe their words will be respected worldwide, and inculcate people of the dangers of possessing nuclear weapons, and hopefully convince countries to abandon nuclear weapons entirely.
✧ For this challenge, we recommend countries to educate their people on abolishing nuclear weapons. Even in Japan, many prefectures do not have peace education in their school curriculums like they do in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not only in Japan, we must make peace education mandatory around the globe so that people can appreciate the war-free communities they live in, and work together to push countries to abolish nuclear weapons to make a peaceful and safe world everyone can happily live in.

 

<Our Role for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons>

✧ We, the young people, commit to educating each other by using many methods, such as using social media and releasing podcasts about the tragic events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By getting to know the Hiroshima and Nagasaki tragedy, we can tell how dangerous and terrible nuclear weapons are.
✧ We, the young people, commit to make peace programs or open peace meetings during school excursions to communicate what we have learned. In these peace programs we can translate the Hibakusha testimonies, because it is difficult for them to travel, so by translating their testimonies people from outside of Japan are also able to understand their experience. We believe victims’ messages and actual experiences are more powerful than any kind of information.
✧ We, the young people, commit to write manga and make an anime about nuclear weapons. Manga and anime are easy to understand and easy to access even for children. For example, the Japanese manga Barefoot Gen has been able to tell how the atomic bomb damaged Hiroshima, to many generations over the years.

 

<The Role of Hiroshima for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons>

✧ We believe that Hiroshima should play an important role to abolish nuclear weapons and spread global awareness of nuclear weapons.
✧ We think that Hiroshima should be a place that people acknowledge as the reason why many argue for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
✧ We expect from Hiroshima to continue to let people understand what happened in 1945. We think that this would root help people realize how terrifying a nuclear strike is. We ask Hiroshima to tell how the atomic bomb destroyed the city and how dangerous nuclear weapons can be through social media.
✧ We also think that one of the biggest problems about nuclear armament is underwater explosion tests of atomic bombs. We know that those kinds of tests harm a lot of creatures and threaten marine life. We expect Hiroshima to point out those situations in a way that relates to politics.

 

<Challenges and Solutions for Peacebuilding>

✧ Towards peacebuilding, we first of all recognize that human rights abuse is one of the main issues that is facing us at the moment. The modern pandemic has caused a mistaken perception of doctors and nurses, that they are infected by the virus and people avoid or ignore them. We also cannot ignore the racism and discrimination that takes place in several areas of the world. The Black Lives Matter movement has made it clear of the horrible prejudice some people are forced to face around the world.
✧ Secondly, radical religious beliefs that result in violence such as terrorism can be an issue that is deeply related to poverty, which is another issue we face when we work to make a peaceful community.
✧ Lastly, disparity and food inequality has always been and will continue to be a cause of conflict, and is one of the most difficult challenges to solve. The capitalist society we live in makes it incredibly difficult to seek equality and fairness across all nations.
✧ For all of these issues we believe education is the main solution that will lead us to a more peaceful and disarmed world. Education can provide us with insight into other cultures and religions, which could build an open mindset and understanding character in children.
✧ For challenges such as poverty and disparity, we recognize solutions which can be setting proper regulations, listening to people’s voices, donating, and choosing the right government. And we recognize the crucial role of education as a base for this.

 

<Our Role for peacebuilding>

✧ We, the young people, commit to educate ourselves to have critical thinking skills, and good background knowledge of different cultures to avoid any misunderstanding or discrimination.
✧ We, the young people, commit to share our cultures to each other through social media, and at school events. We believe that this is a realistic way for young generations to mutually understand differences in culture and by this way, make friends with people from different cultures.
✧ We, the young people, commit to educate influencers on social media and encourage informative posts to go viral so that more people can get to know the problem by seeing their posts. The influencers will play an important role in attracting people’s attention to the problem that we are facing.

 

<The Role of Hiroshima for Peacebuilding>

✧ We believe that Hiroshima can encourage people and students from around the world to visit their memorial park by providing more opportunities under the name of tourism, and increasing peace education programs such as the “Hiroshima Junior International Forum” . These programs and campaigns will allow people to have a good understanding of the histories of Hiroshima, and if possible, take part in peacebuilding.
✧ We believe that Hiroshima should promote setting up museums in other countries. Within these museums, we acknowledge the need to include the history of how Hiroshima recovered, and hope it will inspire others to work to recover their own countries as well.
✧ We expect Hiroshima to utilize social media apps such as Spotify and Instagram to teach people about the history of Hiroshima. We think that Hiroshima can create their own official Instagram account. We also recommend Hiroshima to release historical podcasts on popular audio streaming services such as Spotify etc.
 

 

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. We must connect with people all over the world to disarm the world and make it a peaceful place for all, and never to repeat the tragic events of the past again. 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