Scars that keep on hurting

'Don't get married'; 'Don't come close. You are infectious'...

Survivors of the US atomic bombings of Japan will receive the Nobel Peace Prize today but, after years of anti-nuclear campaigning and showing the world their scars, they still retain the painful memories of the discrimination they have faced.

After the 1945 US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to Japan's surrender and the end of World War II, many people who survived the attacks were shunned by society.

Prejudice related to their exposure to radiation made it hard for them to find jobs and affected their prospects for marriage, leading one small group in Tokyo to build a communal grave where dozens were buried together.

There are currently about 106,800 A-bomb survivors, known as "hibakusha", in Japan, according to the government. Their average age is 85.

One of them is 90-year-old Reiko Yamada, who was 11 and lived in Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on 6 August, 1945, killing about 140,000 people.

That attack, and another three days later on Nagasaki where 74,000 people were killed, inflicted severe injuries and radiation-related illnesses on those who survived.

"People faced extreme discrimination" over their scars and exposure to radiation, Yamada said.