SGI Cosponsors Youth Side Event at 2023 NPT Preparatory Committee

On August 7, the SGI (Soka Gakkai International) cosponsored a hybrid event titled “In Discussion with Global Youth: Inheriting the Experiences of Hibakusha” together with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), Nyuklia Eureka, Reverse the Trend (RTT) and Youth for TPNW. The hybrid event was held as part of the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (2023 NPT Preparatory Committee) held at the Vienna International Centre in Austria from July 31 to August 11.

At the youth event, a video testimony of an atomic bomb survivor (hibakusha), Keiko Ogura from Hiroshima, was screened. IPPNW Associate Program Director Molly McGinty moderated the event at which four speakers representing RTT, IPPNW, Nyuklia Eureka and the SGI shared their perspectives on nuclear disarmament and initiatives toward it.  

Similarly on August 9, youth perspectives on nuclear weapons were shared at an online peace forum held by Soka Gakkai youth in Nagasaki, Japan. A hibakusha video testimony was also shown. Other events were held in Japan in early August to mark 78 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.