Should hibakusha be written in kanji or kana?


I typed hibakusha as "被爆者" in "被爆者：食べ物はあまり持っていませんでした。", and someone hesitantly
suggested that I use kana.

Neither Wiktionary nor jisho.org suggest using kana.

Is there any linguistic or stylistic reason to use kana?

**Update** : The person actually said "被害者…かな？", which actually means
"higaisha, perhaps?", and isn't to do with hiragana/katakana versus kanji.




Some Japanese words are often written in katakana when people want to
emphasize _X-as-an-international-word_ or _X-as-known-to-foreigners_ feelings.

  * [カイゼン](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/18529/5010)
  * [ニッポン](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/17799/5010)
  * ツナミ
  * ニンジャ, テンプラ, ゲイシャ, フジヤマ, ...

ヒバクシャ is occasionally the subject of this phenomenon (e.g. [**世界**
ヒバクシャ展](http://www.no-more-hibakusha.net), [**国際**
ヒバクシャ医療センター](http://www.hibakusha.jp/)), but in general, it's normally written
in kanji. Depending on what and to whom you write, you may choose to use
katakana.

