The stabbing deaths of 19 disabled people in their sleep in July and the silence surrounding their identities are forcing Japan to grapple with its attitudes toward physically and cognitively impaired persons, less than four years before Tokyo hosts the Paralympics.

Almost nothing except their genders and ages - ranging from 19 to 70 - has been made public about those who died when a man went on a stabbing spree at a facility for disabled people in Sagamihara town, southwest of Tokyo, killing 19 and wounding 26 others.

The silence has sparked debate about the need for change in a society where people with disabilities can still suffer stigma and shame.