Human Rights Japan

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2006-04-07T08:21:00.000+09:00

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Rapid-deportation policy draws flak

2006-02-07T08:16:00.000+09:00

Asahi Shimbun
02/02/2006
By HIROSHI MATSUBARA
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200602010433.html

When two Kurdish teenagers in Saitama Prefecture were turned down for refugee status in late January, they hoped to take their cases to court--a right guaranteed by the Constitution.

Instead, that same day, they were given two plane tickets, taken to the airport and put onto a flight to Turkey. Officials threatened to tie them up if they resisted.

The case is the second confirmed instance of the controversial new rapid-deportation policy of the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau.

Under the new approach, some asylum seekers are deported immediately following the rejection of their refugee applications, giving them no time to appeal in court.

Legal experts say this violates foreigners' constitutional right to trial.

The Kurdish teenagers came to Japan in 2002 and 2004, respectively. They applied for refugee status in 2004, arguing they could be persecuted in Turkey because of their Kurdish ethnicity.

In September 2005, the Justice Ministry turned down their applications and detained them at an immigration facility in Ibaraki Prefecture. They then filed a legal appeal of the decision with the ministry.

Then in late January they were told their appeal had been rejected, too.

Surprisingly, ministry officials had their plane tickets in hand, and shipped the pair back to Turkey that same day.

Officials threatened to tie up the teenagers in blankets if they resisted, according to their lawyer, Takeshi Ohashi.

"The ministry apparently withheld notifying (the pair) that their appeals had been rejected until it had completed legal steps and arranged the flight to Turkey, in an attempt to block them from filing lawsuits that could take a couple of years," Ohashi said.

"The move obviously infringed on their constitutional right to receive a trial here," Ohashi said.

He fears rapid deportation will become the norm, and says his clients will file for damages from the government.

The ministry has recently been cracking down on visaless foreigners, in accordance with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's 2003 campaign pledge to halve their number from 250,000 within five years.

A similar case occurred in January 2005, when eight Bangladeshi men were deported the day their ministry applications were rejected.

The eight, now in their late 30s and 40s, came to Japan in toward the end of the 1980s.

After working in Tokyo for more than a decade without valid visas, they finally decided in 2004 to apply for special permission from the justice minister to stay in Japan, a last resort for foreigners who have overstayed their visas.

In the early morning of Jan. 21, 2005, they were told at Tokyo's immigration detention facility that their applications had been rejected.

Within the hour, they were handcuffed, packed into two buses, driven to Narita Airport and put on a flight to Bangladesh, their lawyers said.

Six of them plan to file damages suits with the Tokyo District Court this month, asking for 3 million yen each for violation of their right to trial, and unnecessary physical restraint during the deportation process.

The six had wanted to file administrative litigation before their deportation, their lawyers say, but had no time because of what they call the "cruel" and "sneaky" move.

In 2005, a revision to the Administrative Litigation Law extended the statute of limitations for filing that kind of suit from three to six months from the time of the original decision.

The revision was made to "properly secure the opportunities for Japanese people to restore their rights or interests" should those be damaged by government actions.

But Immigration Bureau officials apparently believe that those rights do not apply to foreign nationals.

"(We) cannot allow foreigners who have overstayed their visas to remain in Japan for such a long period, even if they plan to file litigation," said a senior official of the bureau's enforcement division.

"We do not believe we violated foreigners' rights to file lawsuits," the official added. "They could have prepared for filing lawsuits before they were notified of the ministry's rejection of their application, or consulted their lawyers within the day."

But their lawyers say some clients did indeed ask to talk to their lawyers, but were refused.

They also argue that preparing for litigation beforehand is impossible because the time and result of the decision are unpredictable.

Man loses racial discrimination suit against shop

2006-02-01T10:05:00.000+09:00

The Japan Times

OSAKA -- In a case that human rights lawyers and activists worry could condone racial discrimination against foreigners by Japanese businesses, the Osaka District Court rejected a lawsuit Monday that was filed by a black American man who was denied entry to a store apparently due to his color.

Steve McGowan, 41, a resident of Kyoto Prefecture, filed the 1.5 million yen suit after he was denied entry in September 2004 to a store in Osaka Prefecture that sells eyeglasses. He claimed the owner shouted at him to leave and told him he hated black people.

But presiding Judge Yoshifumi Saga ruled that, while it was inappropriate for McGowan to have been asked to leave, there was no evidence the store owner had made discriminating remarks against blacks and said it was questionable whether McGowan had understood what the owner had said.

The court noted that the plaintiff claimed he was told to get out and not to touch the door or show window, but added that neither the plaintiff nor his friend were in the shop at the time, so there was no reason they would have been told to "get out."

"There are doubts about the plaintiff's Japanese ability. . . . and the defendant himself has said he recognizes he has limited freedom in Japanese," the court said. "Therefore, testimony from the plaintiff about what the defendant said can't be trusted."

In a news conference immediately following the ruling, a visibly shocked McGowan warned that a dangerous precedent was being set.

"Today I felt as if I was not in Japan, but in the Alabama of the 1950s. I've been made to feel less than human, like an animal," said McGowan, choking back tears. "This case was not just about me. With this ruling, the judge has given store owners the right to discriminate based on color."

Masao Niwa, a human rights attorney and lead lawyer for McGowan's legal team, expressed disbelief that the court failed to address the most basic issue of all.

"Nowhere does the ruling attempt to answer the question of why he was refused," Niwa said. "This decision is extremely unfair."

That question was also on the minds of rights activists who warned the ruling was tantamount to condoning "commercial apartheid" against foreigners.

"The judge missed the point," Sapporo-based activist Debito Arudou said after the ruling. "The issue is not, 'Did Steve understand properly why he was being refused?' The issue is, 'Why did the shop refuse Steve entry?' "

"Now public-space shops can act like private clubs, refusing anyone they don't like, especially foreigners," Arudou said. "Shops can just claim, 'There was a misunderstanding -- because of his Japanese abilities.' "

McGowan said he will decide whether to appeal in a few days.

Inoguchi: Gender equality needed to increase birthrate

2006-01-19T09:16:00.000+09:00

Japan must act now to encourage parents to have kids: minister
Wed Jan 18, 2005

Women may have made inroads in corporate Japan since the days they were expected to serve tea and look for husbands, but much more must be done to reverse a falling birthrate, the woman tackling the problem says.

Japan should improve gender equality to let people enjoy both family and work lives and stop the population from shrinking further, according to minister Kuniko Inoguchi.

Some 70 percent of working women quit their jobs after their first pregnancy as they face difficulties balancing their homes and careers, while young people shun having children due to economic worries, she said.

"Japan is a resource-poor country and human resources are the only treasure we have here on this land," Inoguchi told AFP in an interview.

"Every child that wants to be born in this land must be given the opportunity to be born," she said. "Many young people willing to get married and have a family are deterred from making this decision."

"You shouldn't be asked, if you are born in an affluent democracy, that you can only have work or life," she said.

"I believe Japan is rich enough, affluent enough to provide citizens with both goals."

Inoguchi, a 53-year-old expert on international politics and security, was first elected to parliament with backing from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party last September.

A mother of twin daughters, Japan's former ambassador for disarmament was appointed to be the nation's first minister primarily tasked with addressing the falling birthrate.

Japan has come a long way from just a few decades ago, when women were referred to as "flowers" in the office who would find husbands and leave.

But Inoguchi said Japan also needed to focus on women who have left the workforce and who take care of children without the help of husbands toiling long hours.

"They are very lonely, they are up against the wall with a tiny baby," she said.

"All these days we have been addressing working mothers' problems, but the real problem could be those mothers who gave up their positions," she said.

Japan's population fell this year for the first time since World War II, a census showed, raising concerns for the future of the workforce in the world's number two economy.

The mostly homogenous [sic] country has resisted boosting its population by accepting wide-scale immigration.

"We have to reintegrate women fully to the labor force before we look into immigrants" and other measures, Inoguchi said.

Japan is racing against the clock, with the babyboomers' children remaining in their prime child-rearing age only for the next five years.

"So in terms of changing this declining birthrate, I have to work really hard up against the time limit.

"So you can't really postpone many of the political and administrative initiatives. It's not something that you would make in a 15-year plan. You have to work year by year with the best judgment that you could have."

"Everybody is for my program. Everybody is for the goal I aim for," she said.

But with Japan trying to trim a budget imbalance, Inoguchi was aware that financial limitations could give the government less room to maneuver in providing incentives to have children.

She said the government's cost-cutting drive could bring about "dividends" to be used elsewhere.

"I'm asking Mr Koizumi to give me the dividends in my policy area because we have waited for a long time," she said.

Less than four percent of Japan's social security expenses are spent on policies for children and families, with 70 percent going for care of the elderly.

Inoguchi is one of a small number of women in Japanese politics.

The number of female lawmakers has not risen much since Japanese women won the right to vote six decades ago. Forty-four women were elected in September, making up only nine percent of the 480-seat lower house.

Japan fingerprinting plans spark opposition

2006-01-17T22:36:00.000+09:00

Japan fingerprinting plans spark opposition
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060111/wl_nm/japan_fingerprinting_dc
Wed Jan 11

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's plans to fingerprint foreigners at immigration checkpoints, aimed to prevent terrorism, risk breaching human rights and invading individuals' privacy, a lawyers' group said on Wednesday.

Stricter checks at immigration, including the compulsory photographing and fingerprinting of foreigners on arrival, are laid down in a revised immigration bill the Justice Ministry will present to parliament in the next few months, Isao Negishi of the ministry's Immigration Bureau said in an interview.

The revised law would allow Japan to deport any arriving foreigner it considers to be a terrorist, Negishi said.

A Japanese newspaper reported last month that a member of a radical Islamist group banned in Pakistan had entered Japan two years ago to try to establish a foothold in the country. A police report also released last month said the country was at risk of attack because of its close links with the United States.

Japan's Federation of Bar Associations said in a statement on its Web site that the plans should be abandoned because the fingerprinting of foreigners violated a constitutional requirement to treat people with respect.

The use of biometrics -- identifying individuals through techniques such as retinal scanning, face recognition and fingerprinting -- raises questions about privacy and control of personal information, the lawyers' group said.

"The proposal says the information will be used for criminal investigations as well," said Masashi Ichikawa, the deputy head of the committee on human rights for the lawyers' group.

"So the authorities could match footage from CCTV cameras to digitised pictures to work out exactly where an individual had been on a particular day," Ichikawa added. "We don't think that should happen to people just because they are foreign. Japanese people do bad things too."

The lawyers' group also expressed concern over the difficulty of defining "terrorism."

The Immigration Bureau's Negishi defended the constitutionality of the proposed law.

"We are aware that this information must be treated extremely carefully," he said. "But we do not consider the act of taking fingerprints a violation of the constitution in itself."

He added that the issue of whether an individual could be labeled a terrorist would likely be decided by discussion between various government agencies.

Fingerprinting and photographs were introduced at U.S. immigration checkpoints in 2004.

But the issue is a particularly sensitive one in Japan, where local governments were long required to fingerprint all resident foreigners, including "special permanent residents" of Korean and Chinese origin.

Many of these residents are descendants of those brought to Japan as forced labor before and during World War Two.

Local government fingerprinting was halted in 2000 and special permanent residents are to be excluded from the new rules.

Lawsuit-free land a myth

2006-01-03T19:41:00.000+09:00

from the The Japan Times

Who says people don't sue in Japan? They do, and sometimes it makes a difference.

By ARUDOU DEBITO

Japan is not renowned for its courtroom dramas. But occasionally a landmark ruling does make the front pages.

Witness the Sep. 14, 2005, Supreme Court decision on absentee voting. Plaintiffs sued the government for not guaranteeing their constitutional right to vote from overseas, and won.

This is big. Big enough maybe, believe it or not, to have a profound effect on human rights for foreigners in Japan.

Non-Japanese residents already have a history of taking racial discrimination cases to court.

To wit: The Ana Bortz case of 1999, where a woman was thrown out of a Hamamatsu jewelry store for being Brazilian; the Otaru onsen case of 2001-2005, where three Caucasians (one a naturalized Japanese) were barred from a bathhouse for having the wrong physical appearance; a case in 2003, where a Saitama realtor screened an Indian renter for the appropriateness of his skin color; and a 2004 case, where a naturalized Chinese was refused entry at a Tokyo bar ostensibly for being foreign.

Early this year, the Osaka District Court will opine on the Steve McGowan case (Zeit Gist: Nov. 30, 2004), regarding an American who was refused entry to a Kyoto eyeglass shop because the manager "doesn't like black people."

No doubt the future portends more suits of this ilk, as "Japanese Only" signs and policies continue to proliferate nationwide. Racial discrimination, lest you forget, is not illegal in Japan.

However, the good news is that plaintiffs above have won their cases, penalizing private-sector businesses for their exclusionism.

That's encouraging. And not only because non-Japanese are slowly realizing that with copious time, money and willpower, they might sue and get some semblance of justice. They might even positively affect legal precedent in Japan.

Now, before detractors resume accusing these "foreign lawsuiters" of "cultural imperialism," of "foisting their Western litigiousness on Japan," consider some facts:

First, it's perfectly all right to sue in Japan. As the Japanese government told the U.N. in 1999, access to the courts is a constitutionally guaranteed right. (They also said Japan needs no laws against racial discrimination precisely because the judiciary will provide redress.)

Second, about that myth that "Japanese don't sue." Time it got a dirt nap.

According to the latest figures on the Prime Minister's Cabinet home page, in 1998 alone there were nearly 5.5 million suits filed in Japan ( www.kantei.go.jp/jp/sihouseido/dai8/saikousai/12s.pdf ).

Filed by -- you guessed it -- Japanese people.

In fact, the Japanese judicial system is so clogged up that there is debate on how to speed things up -- by, say, lessening court deliberation time, or making it easier to pass the Bar exam.

It's not as if you haven't heard of any high-profile lawsuits here. Win or lose, here are a few:

Hansen's disease patients, Minamata mercury poisoning victims, Ienaga Saburo's textbook censorship, salary discrimination by gender, and various wartime issues left unresolved by any other means . . .

Again, these lawsuits were filed not by "litigious Westerners," but by Japanese and other Asians. People with strong senses of social justice, who wanted to be compensated for mental suffering, make public statements of discontent and even set a good judicial precedent.

Some, encouraged by Japanese legal support networks, even file what could be disparagingly labeled as "nuisance" lawsuits: Suing local and national governments for negligence ("fusakui"). Still, they are perfectly entitled to, under the State Reparations Law ("kokka baishou hou"). That's why it exists.

After all, filing suit against individual miscreants is like pounding moles in a mountain range. Suing the government for not serving their taxpayers may offer universal redress at a stroke.

But that's quite a challenge. You know the axiom, "you can't fight City Hall." It's even more true in Japan.

Traditionally, lawsuits against the government have been an exercise in creative illogic. Japanese courts have ruled that the public has no legal ground to expect laws to be passed to safeguard their constitutional rights.

Why? The argument runs: The judiciary cannot force the legislative branch to legislate. That would be a violation of the separation of powers.

But further lawsuits have fortunately eroded that. Let me take you down a line of precedents:

Once upon a time, there was a handicapped person in Sapporo. Unable to leave his house, he could not vote in elections because Japan had no absentee ballot system.

In 1971, he sued the national government for not taking sufficient measures to ensure his constitutionally guaranteed right of suffrage.

In 1985, the Supreme Court ruled that he had no case. Passing laws is, after all, "at the government's discretion."

It also ruled, incredibly, that public policy is a political matter, and that politicians have no absolute duty to protect the rights of individuals. (Ashibe Nobuyoshi, "Kenpou," page 347)

That's nuts. What's the point of having a Constitution, then? One would expect elected representatives to be first in line to follow it.

This affected future lawsuits.

In the onsen case, the Otaru city government was sued for negligence, i.e. for not taking effective measures to force businesses to cease unconstitutional "Japanese only" policies.

Citing the 1985 precedent, courts ruled that a local government had no absolute duty to protect its foreign residents (or its Japanese citizens, for that matter) from racial discrimination. Sapporo High Court made the most sophistic, er, sophisticated argument:

"If there is a law out there, we can rule whether or not it is constitutional or against international treaty.

"However, if there is no law, there is nothing we can rule upon.

"Therefore, the nonexistence of a law is not actionable in court."

That's even more nuts. This gives governments an incentive to avoid passing a law because doing so will take away their "discretionary power," moreover make them liable in court. So do nothing. This ruling demonstrated there's no penalty for that.

Should be cause for defenestration. But take heart. If enough people file suit, eventually something good gets through.

As an example, let's go back to that decision in September, where plaintiffs sued over the lack of absentee voting for overseas Japanese.

When the Supreme Court agreed, it created the legal precedent to say the government can be held responsible for not passing laws.

This opens an avenue for Japan's foreign community. The lack of a racial discrimination law is now technically legally actionable.

Slow. My legal consultants caution against over-optimism. The right to vote is rightly seen as the cornerstone of Japan's postwar democracy. Judges will see this right as more deserving of special protection than most.

But courts didn't see that as so important 20 years ago. Or even last year.

So who knows what will happen if somebody takes the national government to court for not passing a law against racial discrimination? Despite 50 years of the postwar Constitution and a decade of treaty promises to do so?

Someone ought to. Because even lawsuits that get derided as "frivolous" and "nuisances" act as incessant drops upon the stone. Years later, an impression gets made.

Few things cause change faster than exposing for public critique the hitherto unspoken illogic that perpetuates flawed systems.

Sapporo Lawyer Toshiteru Shibaike contributed to this essay.

Japanese media and the arrest of Juan Carlos Pizarro Yagi

2006-01-02T10:23:00.000+09:00

from The Guardian

The Japanese media have seized upon the arrest of a Peruvian man accused of murdering a young girl as evidence that the nation is in the grip of a foreign crime wave

Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Tuesday December 6, 2005
Guardian Unlimited

Juan Carlos Pizarro Yagi stands accused of a truly appalling crime. Late last month, it is alleged, he approached seven-year-old Airi Kinoshita as she walked past his apartment on her way home from school in Hiroshima.

Some time during the following 90 minutes he allegedly killed her, placed her body in a cardboard box and dumped it in a nearby car park.

The crime shocked Japan, a country known for its safe streets and relatively low rates of violent crime.

Momentary panic is a natural response to the murder of a child; but the media's loss of perspective is less forgivable.

No sooner had the suspect been identified as a Peruvian national, possibly of Japanese descent, than the media announced that the country was in the grip of a foreign crime wave.

Decent headline writers learn early on in their training that the nationality of a crime suspect is, in the vast majority of cases, irrelevant. Not so in Japan, where the "respectable" broadsheets were as guilty as the tabloids of pandering to their readers' xenophobic instincts.

The Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's more liberal dailies, ran with "Manhunt for Peruvian". Almost without exception the print and broadcast media played up Yagi's nationality.

Rent-a-quote experts all but ignored the real issues raised by Kinoshita's murder, such as school security, preferring to focus on the threat foreigners apparently pose to their law-abiding Japanese hosts.

Grim-faced reporters on daytime television referred to the suspect as "Carlos", dispensing with the usual practice of using a suspect's surname. But then to do that would have drawn attention to his Japanese ancestry and diluted his "otherness".

The tactic has angered human rights campaigners. "The majority of people in Japan want to feel that the people committing these crimes are different from them," said Hideki Morihara, secretary general of the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism in Tokyo.

"If they think that way then they can be satisfied that the criminals are indeed different. That creates an atmosphere of xenophobia, and the media are facilitating it."

With official help, it appears. With impeccable timing the police chose the day of Yagi's arrest to release figures showing that a record 10,860 foreigners had been arrested during the first six months of this year.

In the space of a few days, the justice ministry announced a review of its policy of issuing long-term visas to foreigners (Yagi, who was sacked from his job in a car parts factory for absenteeism, had allegedly been carrying a false passport) and the government announced the formation of a panel to discuss measures to stamp out foreign crime.

Morihara believes the timing of the crime figures' release was no coincidence. "It was very much politically motivated," he said.

"Politicians want to strengthen their control over the population and one way they do it is to say to the majority that they are protecting them from danger - from foreigners."

He also questioned the value of the official statistics, which the local media faithfully reported with no attempt to put them in context.

"First of all the police only report the number of arrests. If you target a specific group (as the police have done with foreigners since 2003) then it is only natural that the number of arrests will rise," Morihara said.

"But if you look at the number of crimes proportionate to the size of the foreign and Japanese populations, the rate is about the same. It isn't right to say that foreign crime alone is the problem."

Many Japanese share his concerns. Yuki Takahashi, 18, said on the Japan Today website: "I think the Japanese media play a big role here - they are creating a stereotyped image of foreigners as a menace to our society. Japanese tend to discriminate against foreigners but it's nothing to be proud of."

But as long as the media-driven atmosphere of suspicion and ignorance continues, those views will remain in the minority.

"The government should be increasing opportunities to bring Japanese and foreign people together, to improve understanding," Morihara said. "But with the help of the media they are just driving them apart."

Tougher adult business law takes effect May 1

2005-12-20T07:31:00.000+09:00

Will this law help curb human trafficking?

Or does it not go far enough?

from the Japan Times

The revised adult entertainment control law will go into force May 1 featuring measures designed to crack down on human trafficking, the government decided Tuesday.

Those arrested or sent to prosecutors for violating the human-trafficking provisions of the Penal Code will be denied business permits.

The revised Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses requires business owners to keep documents confirming that any foreign woman employed for "entertainment services" holds a work permit. It also features measures to punish distributors of sex service fliers and those who advertise sex businesses.

Violators will face a fine of up to 1 million yen. There was no penalty previously.

The revised law contains provisions to curb aggressive touting in entertainment districts.

The move comes amid international criticism of Japan's adult entertainment industry, which has been described as a hotbed for human trafficking.

According to a National Police Agency report issued in July, 51 Thai women were brought into Japan illegally and forced to work in the adult entertainment industry in the first half of this year. It was the highest figure for a six-month period since the NPA began tracking the statistic in 2001.

Human rights groups and researchers, however, estimate that thousands of women, mostly from poor parts of Asia, enter Japan illegally every year and are forced to work in the sex industry.

Justice Ministry may clamp down on foreigners

2005-12-02T17:43:00.000+09:00

from the Mainichi Daily News:

Justice Ministry may clamp down on foreigners following Peruvian's arrest for murder

Justice Minister Seiken Sugiura said on Friday that a ministry task group would discuss what measures to take in connection with accepting foreign workers after a Peruvian man was arrested for killing an elementary schoolgirl.

The 30-year-old Peruvian man reportedly admitted to killing the 7-year-old girl in Hiroshima, but denied any premeditated intention to murder her.

"He apparently has permanent resident status and reportedly is a third-generation Peruvian of Japanese descent," Sugiura said. "If there are problems in the way Japan accepts foreigners, a working group led by Deputy Justice Minister Taro Kono will discuss what measures to take."

Sources said that the in-house working group would discuss better ways to filter foreign workers and stronger measures against those who overstay their visas.

Anti-foreign backlash feared in Japan after murder

2005-12-02T16:50:00.000+09:00

from Reuters:

Japanese police arrested an unemployed Peruvian on Wednesday on suspicion of strangling a primary schoolgirl and abandoning her body in a cardboard box, fanning fears of an anti-foreign backlash.

Concern about crime committed by foreigners has been growing in Japan, and broad media coverage of such offences has made many Japanese wary of welcoming more foreign residents to their nation despite prospects of a shrinking work force.

Activists now fear such feelings will be stoked still further by the arrest of Juan Carlos Pizarro Yagi, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, in connection with the murder of 7-year-old Airi Kinoshita last week, a crime that horrified the nation.

"Manhunt for Peruvian," said a banner headline on the front page of the morning edition of the Asahi Shimbun, a liberal daily, while others said "Arrest warrant issued for Peruvian."

"The fact that he was Peruvian was the big thing in the headlines, when there was absolutely no need to mention it," said Makoto Teranaka, with Amnesty International. "After all, most headlines don't say 'Japanese arrested.'"

"This is really quite a serious human rights problem, and shows that the winds of society are blowing harder against foreign residents of Japan."

Airi disappeared on Nov. 22 shortly after noon while walking home from school in the western Japanese prefecture of Hiroshima. Her body was found around two hours later packed into a cardboard box abandoned in an empty lot in full public view.

Yagi has denied killing the girl, media reports said.

The murder, which was top news on tabloid television shows, was seen as especially shocking because it took place in broad daylight in a residential area, and the fact that a Peruvian was arrested guaranteed wider play.

"There have already been a lot of comments on television that could fan prejudice, such as remarks implying foreigners commit a lot of crimes," said Yuriko Hara at IMADR, a group that fights racism and discrimination.

Hara also noted that most media outlets were referring to the suspect as Carlos rather than by his surname, as would be usual.

"That seems to be playing up the sensational aspect that this crime was committed by a foreigner," Hara added.

Foreign crime is undeniably rising as Japan's foreign population grows, but still only a small fraction of serious crimes are committed by non-Japanese.

The number of legally resident aliens has doubled over the past 25 years and now amounts to about 1.45 percent of the population.

Annual police reports highlighting the number of foreign arrests, and wide media coverage of them, create a sense among many Japanese that the problem is serious and growing.

Last February, in the most recent such report, police said they arrested a record number of foreigners in 2004. Still, only 2.29 percent of the 389,027 people charged with violating Japan's Penal Code and other relevant laws were foreigners.

Nearly 9 in 10 Japanese believe their country is less safe than it was a decade ago, and most blame foreigners and young Japanese for rising crime, government polls have shown.

"It's often said that concern about terrorism is feeding this fear of foreigners, but if you look at incidents of terrorism in Japan's recent history, all of them were conducted by Japanese," said Amnesty's Teranaka.

"Foreigners are simply being made scapegoats by people upset by rising crime rates here."

High court upholds refugee's status

2005-12-02T07:29:00.000+09:00

High court upholds refugee's status
Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 1, 2005

In a rare decision, the Tokyo High Court on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling that said the Justice Ministry was wrong to deny refugee status to a man who had been a senior member of the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar (Burma).

It is only the second case in which a high court has ruled that an asylum seeker was a refugee. In the previous case in June, the Osaka High Court also ruled in favor of a Burmese man.

Presiding Judge Toshiaki Harada said there was reason to believe claims by the 52-year-old man that he faced persecution in Myanmar. The man said he was a former regional chapter leader for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).

Immigration officials questioned the claims, saying the man entered Japan on an authentic passport and had communicated with his family in Myanmar after his arrival. The judge said immigration authorities were wrong to deny him refugee status.

"The decision to deny refugee status on the grounds that sufficient evidence to support the refugee claim did not exist would have to be called unlawful," Harada said.

The man, whose name is being withheld by lawyers, arrived in Japan in June 1998 and applied for asylum soon after.

He said he first participated in anti-government activities in the 1970s and joined the NLD soon after it was established in 1988. He fled the country after learning police were preparing to arrest him in connection with a demonstration near Suu Kyi's house in May 1998.

Citing the precedent of the high court to overturn lower court rulings that favor asylum seekers, lawyers said the ruling reflected a change in the judiciary's perception toward refugee cases.

Lawyers said Harada held four hearings, not the one session that is customary in such cases. The judge also agreed to listen to testimony by Tin Win, a high-profile Burmese refugee in Japan, who testified on the man's past at the NLD.

"We believe that the ruling shows a growing awareness among the judiciary toward the unique nature of refugee cases, and hope that it will serve as a standard for future cases," said lawyer Yasuyoshi Hamano.

An official at the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau called the ruling "regrettable" and said an appeal might be considered.

NYT: "Ugly Images of Asian Rivals Become Best Sellers in Japan"

2005-11-21T16:08:00.000+09:00

This article from the New York Times may be of interest to those with an interest in how right-wing propoganda and revisionism in Japan is being portrayed in the popular culture, particularly manga.

TOKYO, Nov. 14 - A young Japanese woman in the comic book "Hating the Korean Wave" exclaims, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!" In another passage the book states that "there is nothing at all in Korean culture to be proud of."

In another comic book, "Introduction to China," which portrays the Chinese as a depraved people obsessed with cannibalism, a woman of Japanese origin says: "Take the China of today, its principles, thought, literature, art, science, institutions. There's nothing attractive."

The two comic books, portraying Chinese and Koreans as base peoples and advocating confrontation with them, have become runaway best sellers in Japan in the last four months.

In their graphic and unflattering drawings of Japan's fellow Asians and in the unapologetic, often offensive contents of their speech bubbles, the books reveal some of the sentiments underlying Japan's worsening relations with the rest of Asia.

They also point to Japan's longstanding unease with the rest of Asia and its own sense of identity, which is akin to Britain's apartness from the Continent. Much of Japan's history in the last century and a half has been guided by the goal of becoming more like the West and less like Asia. Today, China and South Korea's rise to challenge Japan's position as Asia's economic, diplomatic and cultural leader is inspiring renewed xenophobia against them here.

Kanji Nishio, a scholar of German literature, is honorary chairman of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, the nationalist organization that has pushed to have references to the country's wartime atrocities eliminated from junior high school textbooks.

Mr. Nishio is blunt about how Japan should deal with its neighbors, saying nothing has changed since 1885, when one of modern Japan's most influential intellectuals, Yukichi Fukuzawa, said Japan should emulate the advanced nations of the West and leave Asia by dissociating itself from its backward neighbors, especially China and Korea.

"I wonder why they haven't grown up at all," Mr. Nishio said. "They don't change. I wonder why China and Korea haven't learned anything."

Mr. Nishio, who wrote a chapter in the comic book about South Korea, said Japan should try to cut itself off from China and South Korea, as Fukuzawa advocated. "Currently we cannot ignore South Korea and China," Mr. Nishio said. "Economically, it's difficult. But in our hearts, psychologically, we should remain composed and keep that attitude."

The reality that South Korea had emerged as a rival hit many Japanese with full force in 2002, when the countries were co-hosts of soccer's World Cup and South Korea advanced further than Japan. At the same time, the so-called Korean Wave - television dramas, movies and music from South Korea - swept Japan and the rest of Asia, often displacing Japanese pop cultural exports.

The wave, though popular among Japanese women, gave rise to a countermovement, especially on the Internet. Sharin Yamano, the young cartoonist behind "Hating the Korean Wave," began his strip on his own Web site then.

"The 'Hate Korea' feelings have spread explosively since the World Cup," said Akihide Tange, an editor at Shinyusha, the publisher of the comic book. Still, the number of sales, 360,000 so far, surprised the book's editors, suggesting that the Hate Korea movement was far larger than they had believed.

"We weren't expecting there'd be so many," said Susumu Yamanaka, another editor at Shinyusha. "But when the lid was actually taken off, we found a tremendous number of people feeling this way."

So far the two books, each running about 300 pages and costing around $10, have drawn little criticism from public officials, intellectuals or the mainstream news media. For example, Japan's most conservative national daily, Sankei Shimbun, said the Korea book described issues between the countries "extremely rationally, without losing its balance."

As nationalists and revisionists have come to dominate the public debate in Japan, figures advocating an honest view of history are being silenced, said Yutaka Yoshida, a historian at Hitotsubashi University here. Mr. Yoshida said the growing movement to deny history, like the Rape of Nanjing, was a sort of "religion" for an increasingly insecure nation.

"Lacking confidence, they need a story of healing," Mr. Yoshida said. "Even if we say that story is different from facts, it doesn't mean anything to them."

The Korea book's cartoonist, who is working on a sequel, has turned down interview requests. The book centers on a Japanese teenager, Kaname, who attains a "correct" understanding of Korea. It begins with a chapter on how South Korea's soccer team supposedly cheated to advance in the 2002 Word Cup; later chapters show how Kaname realizes that South Korea owes its current success to Japanese colonialism.

"It is Japan who made it possible for Koreans to join the ranks of major nations, not themselves," Mr. Nishio said of colonial Korea.

But the comic book, perhaps inadvertently, also betrays Japan's conflicted identity, its longstanding feelings of superiority toward Asia and of inferiority toward the West. The Japanese characters in the book are drawn with big eyes, blond hair and Caucasian features; the Koreans are drawn with black hair, narrow eyes and very Asian features.

That peculiar aesthetic, so entrenched in pop culture that most Japanese are unaware of it, has its roots in the Meiji Restoration of the late 19th century, when Japanese leaders decided that the best way to stop Western imperialists from reaching here was to emulate them.

In 1885, Fukuzawa - who is revered to this day as the intellectual father of modern Japan and adorns the 10,000 yen bill (the rough equivalent of a $100 bill) - wrote "Leaving Asia," the essay that many scholars believe provided the intellectual underpinning of Japan's subsequent invasion and colonization of Asian nations.

Fukuzawa bemoaned the fact that Japan's neighbors were hopelessly backward.

Writing that "those with bad companions cannot avoid bad reputations," Fukuzawa said Japan should depart from Asia and "cast our lot with the civilized countries of the West." He wrote of Japan's Asian neighbors, "We should deal with them exactly as the Westerners do."

As those sentiments took root, the Japanese began acquiring Caucasian features in popular drawing. The biggest change occurred during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 to 1905, when drawings of the war showed Japanese standing taller than Russians, with straight noses and other features that made them look more European than their European enemies.

"The Japanese had to look more handsome than the enemy," said Mr. Nagayama.

Many of the same influences are at work in the other new comic book, "An Introduction to China," which depicts the Chinese as obsessed with cannibalism and prostitution, and has sold 180,000 copies.

The book describes China as the "world's prostitution superpower" and says, without offering evidence, that prostitution accounts for 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product. It describes China as a source of disease and depicts Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi saying, "I hear that most of the epidemics that broke out in Japan on a large scale are from China."

The book waves away Japan's worst wartime atrocities in China. It dismisses the Rape of Nanjing, in which historians say 100,000 to 300,000 Chinese were killed by Japanese soldiers in 1937-38, as a fabrication of the Chinese government devised to spread anti-Japanese sentiment.

The book also says the Japanese Imperial Army's Unit 731 - which researched biological warfare and conducted vivisections, amputations and other experiments on thousands of Chinese and other prisoners - was actually formed to defend Japanese soldiers against the Chinese.

"The only attractive thing that China has to offer is Chinese food," said Ko Bunyu, a Taiwan-born writer who provided the script for the comic book. Mr. Ko, 66, has written more than 50 books on China, some on cannibalism and others arguing that Japanese were the real victims of their wartime atrocities in China. The book's main author and cartoonist, a Japanese named George Akiyama, declined to be interviewed.

Like many in Taiwan who are virulently anti-China, Mr. Ko is fiercely pro-Japanese and has lived here for four decades. A longtime favorite of the Japanese right, Mr. Ko said anti-Japan demonstrations in China early this year had earned him a wider audience. Sales of his books surged this year, to one million.

"I have to thank China, really," Mr. Ko said. "But I'm disappointed that the sales of my books could have been more than one or two million if they had continued the demonstrations."

Another white guy with his own theory about the Japanese...

2005-11-21T15:28:00.000+09:00

I'm really getting tired of white men believing they have some unique insight into Japanese culture.

This article in The Metropolis has got to be one of the most absurd articles I've ever read about Japan. Not only do we have the typical Nijonjinron "Japanese are unique" argument, but now we have a new "innate cuteness" argument, summed up in this nugget of wisdom:

Now, many of the physical characteristics we associate with the Japanese are also characteristics we associate with children: smoother, less hairy skin; lack of physical stature; slenderness; less voluptuous curves in women; large head-to-body ratio; flatter faces; and higher pitched voices. Very few people would argue with the idea that the Japanese are cuter than most other races.

Even if this is an attempt at ironic humor, it is incredibly condescending and insulting, and even borderline racist -- and not the least bit humorous.

UN: Japan needs to combat racism, xenophobia

2005-11-08T16:21:00.000+09:00

From Japan Today:

Japan should clearly adopt national legislation to combat racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia, and exercise a greater political will to fight them, a U.N special rapporteur said Monday.

"I will propose that in Japan, as elsewhere, that national legislation should be adopted clearly against racism and racial discrimination and xenophobia," said Doudou Diene of Senegal, who was appointed by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to investigate contemporary forms of racism and discrimination in various countries.

Amnesty International: Appeals for compensation fall on deaf ears

2005-11-06T11:10:00.000+09:00

From Amnesty International:

Amnesty International today called on the Japanese government to accept full responsibility for crimes committed against women condemned to sexual slavery by their Japanese captors -- so-called "comfort women" -- before and during the Second World War.

In a comprehensive report entitled "Still Waiting After 60 years: Justice for Survivors of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery System", the organization outlines the brutal treatment suffered by "comfort women" and the excuses given over the years to deny responsibility for their suffering. Up to 200,000 women were sexually enslaved by the Japanese military before and during the Second World War, many of whom were under the age of 20, with some as young as 12. The report also provides recommendations to the Japanese government and the international community on ensuring justice for the remaining survivors.

"The Japanese government must finally right the wrongs of over 60 years by providing full reparations to the survivors of this horrific system of sexual slavery," said Purna Sen, Director of Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Programme.

Survivors of the "comfort women" system are now elderly and unknown numbers have died without justice, an adequate public apology or direct compensation from the Japanese government. For years, the Japanese government consistently denied responsibility for its system of military sexual slavery and only when evidence directly linking the Japanese government's role came to light did the government finally admit responsibility.

"Apologies offered to former "comfort women" have been inadequate, vague and unacceptable to survivors. Moreover, the Asian Women's Fund fails to meet international standards of reparation and is perceived by survivors as a way of buying their silence," said Purna Sen.

"This is a current human rights issue that should not be relegated to the past -- it is about lives that have been destroyed and the continued denial of justice and reparation," said Purna Sen. "Reparations in this case are not just a moral obligation. Any state that commits war crimes and crimes against humanity such as rape and sexual slavery also has a legal obligation to provide full reparations and a promise of non-repetition directly to the survivors."

The Japanese government has argued that rape was not a war crime until 1949, when it was incorporated into the Fourth Geneva Convention. Amnesty International argues in its report, however, that there is a wealth of evidence that rape in the context of armed conflict was a crime under customary international law during the entire period in which the Japanese government operated its system of sexual slavery.

"I was taken to China when I was 16 years old," says South Korean national Lee Ok-sun, now aged 79. She was abducted and taken to Yanbian, north-eastern China -- where she was forced into sexual slavery in a "comfort station".

"The age range of the girls was from 14 to 17 and they forced us to serve 40 to 50 soldiers a day," she says. "It was impossible to serve that many men, so I refused and was beaten. If a woman refused they cut her body with a knife; some girls were stabbed. Some girls got diseases and died... It was a painful experience -- there was not enough food, not enough sleep and I couldn't even kill myself. I desperately wanted to escape." Lee Ok-sun was in China for 58 years before she was able to return to South Korea.

"We want our experience to be written in history so that the next generation and people in other countries will know what happened to us and for us to be given justice," said Lola Pilar of the Philippines, in the Amnesty International report. "The Japanese government has to admit to what the Japanese soldiers did. We need an apology and compensation from the Japanese government""

"I want justice more than the money," echoes survivor Lola Amonita, also of the Philippines. "I want a public apology from the Japanese government."

Background

"Comfort women" is a term used to euphemistically refer to young females from the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, South and North Korea, Japan, Indonesia, the Netherlands and other Japanese-occupied countries or regions who were forced in to sexual slavery by Japanese troops before and during the Second World War.

The abuse took place at "comfort stations" established by the Japanese authorities wherever they were based during the course of the wars. Women were brought to the stations often through abduction or deception; sometimes they were bought from their destitute parents.

Despite the widespread prevalence of what was essentially institutionalized rape, the issue of "comfort women" was ignored by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, set up after the Second World War to prosecute Japan's war criminals. Only during the Dutch military tribunal in Indonesia were prosecutions made -- for the sexual enslavement of Dutch women only; similar crimes against Indonesian women went unpunished.

Humiliated and ashamed, "comfort women" survivors remained silent for decades before finally speaking out in the early 1990s in response to persistent denials by Japanese government of its involvement in the system. Survivors are severely traumatized, many never married and many were unable to have children as a result of injuries sustained through repeated rape or due to contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

The Japanese government denied responsibility for the "comfort women" system until evidence directly linking the Japanese government's role was discovered by Professor Yoshimi Yoshiaki in 1992; the Japanese government subsequently issued several official apologies but these have not been acceptable to the survivors. Moreover, the Japanese government, in response to tireless campaigning by survivors of the sexual slavery system and their supporters and to international criticism, introduced the Asian Women's Fund in 1995. However the fund is perceived by survivors as a way for the Japanese government to evade its international legal responsibilities towards them.

Full report on "comfort women" from Amnesty International available here.

'Hard Gay' Razor Ramon releases his first book

2005-11-06T08:05:00.000+09:00

From the Mainichi:

Razor Ramon HG at the release of his first book in Tokyo on Wednesday.

Razor Ramon "Hard Gay," currently one of Japan's hottest celebrities, pledged Wednesday at the release of his first book that the work will be "a lot dirtier" than what he's allowed to get away with on TV.

Razor Ramon HG, who has skyrocketed to fame in recent months by parodying hard core gay rights activists, announced the release of his book "HG" with the customary cry of "Whooo" that has been behind his rise from obscurity as a struggling professional wrestler.

Razor Ramon HG said that his book will be a collection of photos, stories and conversations he has had with his partner, RG.

"The limiter on dirty talk that is normally placed on me when I appear on TV has been lifted for the book, which will be a lot dirtier," the controversial comic told reporters at a book signing.

Razor Ramon HG told reporters of his long held dream to romp around the ring.

"It was always my dream to become a professional wrestler, so when I did so, it was awesome," he said. "I couldn't stop grinding my hips for about a month and I was hot no matter how cold it got."

Razor Ramon HG also sent a message of support to kyogen comic artist Motoya Izumi, who has at least temporarily given up performing in the world of traditional Japanese culture to become a professional wrestler.

"If Izumi represents Japanese-style wrestling, then I'm a symbol of the West," he said, before letting loose with another whoop.

Razor Ramon's announcement was cut short when RG, clad only a bright red loincloth, invaded the stage and the partners let loose with a series of screams.

Nagoya guards who killed inmate set free

2005-11-05T17:55:00.000+09:00

From the Japan Times:

Nagoya guards guilty but walk
Court rules that deadly hosing was 'cleaning'

NAGOYA -- The Nagoya District Court gave two prison guards who killed an inmate by spraying him with a high-pressure water hose suspended sentences Friday, ruling they had not intended to hurt the prisoner.
The pair received suspended sentences for the December 2001 incident at Nagoya Prison, which drew global condemnation and led the government to improve prison conditions.

Mikio Otomaru, 49, was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for four years, for spraying a 43-year-old inmate with a high-pressure hose. The man was serving time for robbery.

Masahiro Takami, 45, received a 14-month prison term, suspended for three years, for assisting Otomaru in the attack.

Both may appeal their sentences, their lawyers said following the ruling.

According to the ruling, the two guards, along with a third guard -- who was also given a suspended sentence last year-- pulled down the pants of the inmate and sprayed water into his rectum in December 2001.

The inmate died the following morning from bacterial shock after suffering severe injuries to his rectum.

The guards had pleaded not guilty, claiming they were simply carrying out their work and trying to wash the inmate.

Presiding Judge Hideki Shibata backed the defense argument that they were trying to clean the inmate and rejected prosecutors' allegations they were inflicting unnecessary punishment.

Prosecutors had asked for a four-year sentence for Otomaru and 18 months for Takami, saying, "The act was aimed at punishing rather than correcting the inmate."

Despite handing down the suspended sentences, the judge said, "It was done in an inadequate way that amounts to assault."

He went on: "The defendants' acts were dangerous and illegal abuse against the inmate. Moreover, they damaged public trust toward corrections administration. It can be easily presumed that the inmate died as a result of the water discharge."

In May, after widespread criticism over the death, the government revamped the prison law for the first time in nearly a century, revising the 1908 code to spell out the rights of prisoners and require human rights training for prison guards.

After the scandal broke, Amnesty International said a lack of transparency in the penal system had allowed prisons to impose arbitrary and sometimes cruel rules.

Court split on leprosy rulings

2005-10-27T11:46:00.000+09:00

from the Asahi Shimbun:

In conflicting rulings, the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday rejected a lawsuit by 117 former leprosy patients from South Korea but upheld a similar lawsuit for compensation by 25 former leprosy patients from Taiwan.

Different judges presided in the cases.

In both cases, the plaintiffs sought government compensation for their suffering as a result of their forced segregation in isolated sanitariums overseas during Japan's colonial rule.

In the case of the Taiwanese plaintiffs, the court said they were entitled to compensation under a 2001 law covering former patients of Hansen's disease. The ruling nullifed a decision by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to withhold compensation.

In the case of the South Korean plaintiffs, the same court said the compensation law does not apply to those who were forcibly hidden from society in sanitariums overseas.

The plaintiffs from Taiwan were segregated at a facility near Taipei, while those from South Korea were held at a national hospital in Sorokto, a tiny island located off the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula.

Leprosy patients worked as forced laborers. Some men were forced to submit to vasectomies and some women to abortions. Forerunners of the two facilities in Taiwan and South Korea were set up by Japanese colonial rulers to contain the disease. The plaintiffs still live in those facilities.

They filed the lawsuits last year to revoke the health ministry's decision to refuse them compensation under the 2001 leprosy compensation law.

In the case involving Taiwanese plaintiffs, the court stressed that the compensation law does not distinguish between Japanese and foreign leprosy patients. Thus, it ruled they were eligible for compensation from the government.

The leprosy compensation law was enacted in 2001 following a ruling that year by the Kumamoto District Court that said the government's policy of segregating leprosy patients was unconstitutional.

In the suit by the Taiwanese plaintiffs, Presiding Judge Hiroyuki Kanno said: "The compensation law is a special measures law designed to widely and thoroughly compensate those who were segregated in facilities. It should be the understanding that the law does not place any restrictions with regard to nationality or residence.

"It would be unfair if the law excluded those from compensation simply because the facility was located in Taiwan. The principle of equal treatment must apply."

In the case of the South Korean plaintiffs, Presiding Judge Toshihiko Tsuruoka stated: "Sanitariums overseas, including those in former colonies, are not recognized as being covered (by the leprosy compensation law).

"Those who were segregated in sanitariums in Japan are subject to the compensation law, but the issue of redress measures for those who were held in facilities overseas is something that must be addressed in the future."

Former leprosy patients in Japan have received lump sums of between 8 million yen and 14 million yen in compensation.

The plaintiffs in both cases, arguing that their suffering was no less than those who had been isolated in Japan, said it would be unfair to deny them compensation especially when a law had been enacted to do precisely that.

Health ministry officials argue that only individuals who were segregated in Japan are eligible for compensation because sanitariums in former colonies were not included in the compensation law at the time of its enactment.

The fact that contradictory rulings were handed down by the same court suggests that lawmakers and health ministry officials were caught off-guard by the Kumamoto District Court's decision and hastily drew up the bill on compensation without giving sufficient attention to all aspects of the matter.

Korean national barred from serving on arbitration panel

2005-10-25T07:28:00.000+09:00

from The Asahi Shimbun:

Amid cries of discrimination, a Supreme Court policy has effectively barred non-Japanese from serving on arbitration committee members of lower courts.

Observers were surprised by the top court's policy that was disclosed recently because no legal revisions explicitly ban foreigners from such positions. However, the Supreme Court asked the Hyogo prefectural bar association to retract its nomination of Yang Young Ja, a South Korean lawyer. The court said only Japanese citizens should be allowed in positions where they exert direct authority over Japanese residents.

Equal Opportunity for Japanese Women -- What Progress?

2005-10-23T08:41:00.000+09:00

by Charles Weathers
October 05, 2005

Career opportunities have improved greatly for many Japanese women in recent years. More large companies are willing to hire them as career-track employees, and their share of elite civil servant positions has been growing. Although female students at my institution, Osaka City University, still encounter discrimination during the job hunt, they have actually outperformed men in recent job searches. A survey of the top 74 universities confirms the trend, showing that women had higher job placement rates this spring in most of the 395 departments covered. It appears that some businesses are taking more seriously the mantra that ability trumps gender in today's more globalized, market-oriented economy.

Despite these signs of progress, however, employment opportunity for the majority of women may actually be getting worse. The main reason is that employers are intent on reducing costs by replacing regular (seiki) employees with lower-paid, disposable non-regular (hiseiki) workers, including part-timers, agency temporaries, and contract workers, who often do the same or similar work. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) estimates that non-regular workers constituted 34.6 percent of the salaried work force in 2003, and the figure continues to rise. The Japanese have assigned the name hiseikika (non-regularization) to the rising ratio of non-regular workers. Some, particularly housewives caring for young children, are content with non-regular and part-time jobs, but the number of "involuntary" non-regulars, those unable to find regular positions, has grown steadily in recent years. Further, even regular female employees are bothered by sexual harassment, discrimination in promotions to management, and refusal of childcare leave.

Twenty years after the passage of the first Equal Employment Opportunity Law, why does Japan's progress toward equal opportunity remain so erratic, or worse?

The full article can be read here.

Girls in need of direction get it from the comics

2005-10-21T13:30:00.000+09:00

By KAORI SHOJI
The Japan Times, Oct. 18, 2005

The business of being a wakai musume (young woman) in this country used to have just one subtext: There were no options. If she didn't get married she was less than a whole person; on the other hand, marriage meant abject obedience to her husband's household and an endless round of bone-crunching chores.

Times have changed, in a surreal kind of way. These days, to be a Japanese woman means options galore, plus the endless delights of self-analysis and soul-searching. An updated version of Cindi Lauper's hit song would be about how Japanese girls have more fun than anyone else. Aiding them in this mission is the world of garu komikku (girl comic books) -- a pop-culture phenomenon that has permanently altered the landscape of Japanese literature.

Japanese government bends law to target foreigners

2005-10-19T07:58:00.000+09:00

Ministry missive wrecks reception
MHLW asks hotels to enforce nonexistent law

from the Japan Times:

Between Oct. 7-11, the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT), Japan's largest convocation of language educators, held its annual meeting in Shizuoka, a pleasant city between Tokyo and Osaka.

Having hosted JALT before, Shizuoka is quite accustomed to taking in thousands of English-speaking foreigners.

This time around, however, Shizuoka decided to accommodate their guests with another lovely service: ID checks before bedtime.

"Razor Ramon HG (Hard Gay)"

2005-10-17T19:54:00.000+09:00

This is a comedian who goes by the name "Razor Ramon HG", HG standing for "hard gay".

Kanako Otsuji, Osaka Prefectural Assemblywoman, and a lesbian, in a Japan Times interview recently responded:

[The way the media treats sexual minorities] makes me angry. This morning I saw [comedian] Razor Ramon for the first time. I never watch TV. I'd only heard about him. He's not homosexual. He just uses gayness for his act, to make people laugh. I'm afraid that people will get the idea that gay people are all like that, yelling and pumping their hips.

Aso calls Japan 'one race' nation

2005-10-17T18:03:00.000+09:00

from the Japan Times:

Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Taro Aso has called Japan a "one race" nation, an expression similar to a controversial statement in 1986 by then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, sources close to the minister said Monday.
In a speech during a ceremony at the new Kyushu National Museum in Dazaifu, Fukuoka Prefecture, on Saturday, the sources said Aso described Japan as having "one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture and one race. There is no other nation (that has such characteristics)."

Two decades ago, Nakasone stirred controversy by publicly calling Japan a "homogenous nation," drawing criticism particularly from the indigenous Ainu people who live mainly in Hokkaido.

Following Aso's remarks, Mitsunori Keira, head of the citizens' group Yaiyukara-no-Mori, which works to preserve Ainu culture, criticized the minister.

"The fact that top government officials have repeatedly made similar remarks shows the government has never sincerely listened to our protest," Keira said.

Assemblywoman puts sex on the agenda

2005-10-17T11:37:00.000+09:00

Lesbian politician Kanako Otsuji talks about gender issues in Japan

from the Japan Times:

In April 2003, 28-year-old Kanako Otsuji became the youngest person ever elected to the Osaka prefectural assembly when she won the seat for Sakai City. It was a distinction made more special by the fact that there were only six other women in the 110-member assembly at the time. However, another distinction was not known to most of the people who voted for her.

Otsuji is a lesbian. Though she did not keep her sexual orientation a secret, the supporters who knew talked her out of revealing this information during the campaign. She was even open about her homosexuality to individual local journalists, but none reported it.

After taking office, Otsuji knew that she wanted to come out. She spent two months writing a memoir, titled "Coming Out," which was accepted by Kodansha. She wanted the publication to coincide with the Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Parade 2005 on Aug. 13, where she planned to come out publicly. However, she felt some sort of obligation to her supporters in Sakai City, and on the day before the parade she held a press conference at which she revealed her sexual orientation.

On Aug. 30, Otsuji held her first meeting with supporters since coming out. She explained why she made the announcement, as well as the meaning of the term "sexual minorities" -- comprising lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender individuals -- and why she aimed to support them in her political career.

Following the meeting, Otsuji talked to The Japan Times about being an openly gay politician in Japan.

Read the interview here.

Living as a 'half': What it's like to be of mixed race in Japan

2005-10-16T12:54:00.000+09:00

from NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON - Associated Press

TOKYO -- "Gaijin da, gaijin da!" my playmates began taunting me one day at the neighborhood park near my home in Kobe, the port city in western Japan where I grew up.

It meant "look foreigner!" and although at age 4 I couldn't grasp the full import of what they were saying, I knew what I was -- and I told them so: "I'm not gaijin. I'm Japanese. I'm also Australian."

We all stared at each other, little brows furrowed. Japanese AND Australian -- how could that be? The other kids went back to the jungle gym, leaving me to figure out a puzzle whose pieces I'm still pulling together at age 28.

Am I really Japanese? Never mind that I was born in Japan, that my first language was Japanese, that I've spent three-quarters of my life here. The problem is I don't look Japanese, and that has always foiled my attempts to pass as one in a country that cloaks itself in an impenetrable veneer of homogeneity.

So in Japan, my native country, I am "haafu," from the word "half." My mother is Japanese and my late father was an Australian of Scottish descent. To most here, I'm simply "haafu gaijin" -- half foreign.

My home was the safe haven where the two sides could freely intersect.

The full article can be found here.

Thailand, Japan to step up fight against human trafficking

2005-10-15T14:58:00.000+09:00

from Yahoo Asia News

The foreign ministries of Japan and Thailand agreed Thursday to set up a joint task force to combat human trafficking, according to a press release from the Thai side.

The agreement was reached in principle during a high-level annual meeting -- the Japan-Thailand Political Partnership Consultation -- in Bangkok on Thursday.

The half-day talks led by the Thai Foreign Ministry's Permanent Secretary Krit Garnjana-Goonchorn and Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Tsuneo Nishida also concluded they should work on an "appropriate framework" for cooperation on the transfer of offenders, said the press release, which gave no details of the plan.

In July, Japan's National Police Agency revealed that 51 foreign women were trafficked into Japan and forced into the sex industry or other forms of exploitation in the first half of this year, the highest figure on record for the first half of a year.

Justice system flawed by presumed guilt

2005-10-15T14:43:00.000+09:00

Rights advocates slam interrogation without counsel, long detentions

from the Japan Times

Japan's criminal justice system lacks a fundamental notion that is manifest in other parts of the democratized world: the presumption of innocence, according to human rights advocates.

Suspects are still forced to make false confessions during interrogations in which legal representation is banned, and custody can last up to 23 days before charges are filed, lawyers and people who claim to have or were determined to have been falsely accused told a recent public meeting in Tokyo held by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.

Arrested suspects are often detained in a police "daiyo kangoku" substitute prison for up to 23 days before indictment, and release on bail is unlikely as long as they plead innocent or remain silent.

Tottori rights law a first but irks critics

2005-10-15T14:34:00.000+09:00

From the Japan Times

The Tottori Prefectural Assembly approved an ordinance Wednesday that the local government claims will protect people from racial discrimination and other human rights violations but critics say will allow authorities to employ rules arbitrarily to protect people in power.

It is the first time a local government has introduced such an ordinance. It may prime the pump for the human rights bill the central government tried to push through the Diet earlier this year but put on hold amid criticism over its potential to restrict media activities, among other flaws.

"Having a regional human rights ordinance will enable us to make meticulous judgments" on human rights issues, Tottori Gov. Yoshihiro Katayama has said in explaining the ordinance.

An Alarming Analysis of Hype and Silence

2005-09-25T15:34:00.000+09:00

from An Alarming Analysis of Hype and Silence

A critical analysis of the National Police Agency's 2004 white paper on crime reveals the most pressing criminal issue in Japan is not foreign crime. It is rape.

The Wasted Asset

2005-08-30T18:28:00.000+09:00

from Time Magazine:

Yuka Tanimoto knows how to serve tea. She can do far more than that, of course, but the 33-year-old newscaster says her Japanese male bosses—and they were all male—weren't overly interested in her non-tea-pouring skills. At the Yamaichi Securities firm, which Tanimoto joined in 1997 as an in-house newscaster, she was chided for daring to voice her opinions on news content—and for cropping her uniform skirt from mid-calf to a scandalous length just below the knee. "The company was looking for cute, non-ambitious girls," says Tanimoto. "We were supposed to make copies quietly, not think." In 2000, Tanimoto moved to the electronics giant Matsushita, but things weren't much different. Only 2% of the women she worked with were on a career track; the rest were so-called office ladies who rarely graduated from tea and copy duty, even after years of service. After getting her M.B.A. in the U.S. last year, Tanimoto couldn't face working for another Japanese company. So in March, she took a job with CNBC as their Tokyo markets reporter. "As a woman, I can rise much higher at a foreign company than at a Japanese one," says Tanimoto. "The Japanese business culture is not changing quickly enough for people like me."

Women say better workplaces would promote childbirth

2005-08-23T15:50:00.000+09:00

Mainichi Daily News
August 22, 2005

Changes to workplaces that would make it easy for mothers to work
would encourage women to have children the most, a Mainichi survey has found.

An Internet-based survey conducted by the Mainichi with assistance
from NTT-Resonant Inc. asked women the question, "What change from current circumstances would encourage you to have children the most?" permitting multiple answers.

Topping the list of responses in the survey was, "having a workplace
that would make it easy to work even with children," selected by 43
percent of the respondents. At 32.1 percent was "an increase in
government assistance such as allowances for children," a move being
promoted in the manifestos of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP),
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Komeito and the Social Democratic
Party (SDP) ahead of the upcoming Lower House election.

Only 26.4 percent of respondents selected a "zero waiting list (for
nursery schools)," which opposition parties have been promoting,
highlighting the gap between government policies and the public view
on measures to counter the nation's falling birth rate.

The current monthly family allowance is 5,000 yen per child for up to
two children, and 10,000 yen per child from the third child onwards.
The DPJ, Komeito and the SDP have all promoted increases in the
allowance as the selling point of their manifestos. Komeito has
promoted "a way of working in which lifestyle is not sacrificed" as
support for women in raising children, while the LDP and DPJ have
simply touched on parental leave and a system of short working hours.

In response to the question, "What change would make you want to give
birth to children?" 42.0 percent of full-time housewives and 44.2
percent of unmarried women selected "a workplace where it is easy to
work," showing that working conditions were closely related to the
decision on how many children to have regardless of whether women were married or working.

When both men and women were questioned on time they spent with their children, 54.3 percent said, "I want to spend more time with my children even if my wages decrease." When the question was restricted to men in their 30s and 40s -- those in their working prime -- 61.3 percent said they wanted to spend more time with their children, indicating that values were gradually starting to change.

The survey also asked men to consider the statement, "I wouldn't mind
abandoning my role as breadwinner supporting the family if my wife's
income could cover the household expenses." A total of 39 percent said
they agreed with the statement. Separated into age groups, as total of
53.8 percent of those in their 30s and 40s said they agreed with the
statement, compared with only 32.0 percent aged 50 or older.

When asked how the government should finance child support, the
overwhelming response was "by cutting back on wasteful public works
and administrative expenses," chosen by 85.0 percent of respondents.
Only 5.9 percent selected the answer, "by raising consumption tax."

The survey questions were prepared by the Mainichi and the survey was
conducted on July 19 and 20 by goo Research, which is operated by
NTT-Resonance. Answers were obtained from 1,079 respondents.

Discrimination in Japan ‘deep,’ U.N. rep says after 9-day visit

2005-07-15T11:40:00.000+09:00

from Kyodo News
July 12, 2005

Discrimination in Japan is “deep and profound,” with government leaders lacking recognition of the depth of the problem and the public having a “strong xenophobic drive,” a U.N. special rapporteur said Monday in wrapping up a nine-day visit in Japan.

Doudou Diene of Senegal, appointed by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, called for stronger political will at the highest level to combat the issue, for Japan to enact a national law condemning racism as is obligatory under international conventions, and to improve its public education about minorities in the country.

“It will be a long-term task to change people’s mentality and it must be done through education,” said Diene, special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

During his stay since July 3, Diene met with officials of both national and local authorities to determine the extent Japan is complying with its international human rights obligations. He also visited communities of minorities such as the aboriginal Ainu, the “burakumin,” formerly social outcasts in feudal Japan, and people of Korean and Chinese descent.

From these meetings, Diene concluded there was a clear gap between the perceptions of the reality of discrimination between government officials and the minority communities.

Japan has liaisons nationwide that aim to eliminate discrimination against the “burakumin” and the Diet passed a law in 1997 to help preserve Ainu traditions and culture.

But citing cases in which the “burakumin” were listed by private groups and discriminated against in employment, Diene criticized the lack of government action to combat such practice and said, “I find this shocking and terrible.”

“Japan has no comprehensive national law against discrimination,” Diene said at a news conference. “I strongly recommend such a national law be drafted not only based on international instruments Japan takes part in, but that the minorities concerned have to be consulted.”

A spokesman of the Justice Ministry, which Diene visited last Wednesday, declined to comment on the special rapporteur’s remarks but said a human rights protection bill is under deliberation in parliament.

Describing the discrimination against the Ainu, “burakumin,” and Korean and Chinese residents as being “deeply rooted” in historical and cultural aspects, Diene urged the Japanese government to set up an organ at the national level to promote equality for minorities.

Having examined samples of Japanese junior high school textbooks provided to him by the education ministry, Diene said Japan must ensure that the roles and contributions of minorities to the country be taught accurately and appropriately so that Japanese people have the right perception.

Without specifically naming Japan, Diene also criticized the current global trend in which xenophobic sentiment stemming from measures to combat terrorism and illegal immigration has “slowly made its way into the platforms of democratic parties.”

Diene said he had requested a meeting with Tokyo Gov Shintaro Ishihara, known for his nationalistic views and controversial remarks against foreigners, but was denied an appointment.

But the special rapporteur gave a positive appraisal of the Japanese government’s cooperation with his visit and said this indicated “in a positive way” that Japan is willing to accept recommendations to tackle the problem.

Diene said he shared his preliminary findings with the Japanese government Monday morning and will wait for Japan’s response before completing a final report to be submitted to the Commission on Human Rights next March.

He will also present a summary of his findings in an interim report to the U.N. General Assembly this autumn. It was the first time a U.N. special rapporteur on racism has visited Japan.

A fight to the death: One of Japan's longest-running legal feuds reignites amid worsening ties with Korea

2005-07-14T12:32:00.000+09:00

from the Japan Times:

Her bony, 80-year-old body floating around inside a nylon shirt and cigarette permanently clamped between what appear to be her two remaining front teeth, Kan Kyon Nam is an unlikely illegal squatter.

But frail or not, if the bulldozers come she wants it known there'll be trouble. "If they try to evict me and demolish my house, I'll die under it," she says. "There's no point in trying to stay alive at my age."

Fighting talk comes easy to the older residents of Utoro, a tiny Korean village of rickety houses in Uji City, Kyoto, which has been struggling to avoid being wiped from the map for over half a century.

One of Japan's longest-running social disputes, Utoro has been largely forgotten here, but across the Japan Sea this community of 230 people is seen by many as a living symbol of the hardships of Korean immigrants.

Now, against a background of soured bilateral relations, the village is back in the media spotlight.

'Little Black Sambo' flies off shelves

2005-07-02T16:15:00.000+09:00

from Japan Today:

In the June edition of Bungei Shunju, Zuiunsha's Tomio Inoue takes the whole "racist vs insensitive" discussion to a new level, saying that it's OK to reprint the story since "in the world today, there aren't feelings of discrimination toward black people because we see them active in many areas and having a positive impact on many people ... I think we need to have more faith in the children of Japan."

Inoue claims that Sambo was a common name in northern India meaning "excellent," and he describes Dobias' golliwog-like depictions of the supposedly Indian child as a "bold use of color."

Mandom Corporation pulls "Mogeha" ad after complaints regarding its depiction of blacks

2005-06-19T20:16:00.000+09:00

Mandom Corp. has decided to pull its recent "Mogeha" ad featuring a monkey imitating black men in large part due to a grassroots letter-writing campaign. More about the ad and the campaign can be found here. The campaign also received national and international press coverage.

Japan resurrects `Little Black Sambo'

2005-06-16T13:25:00.000+09:00

from The Guardian:

Seventeen years after it was removed from bookshops for its racist content, the children's story Little Black Sambo has made a comeback in Japan.

"Times have changed since the book was removed," Zuiunsha's president, Tomio Inoue, said.

"Black people are more prominent in politics and entertainment, so I don't think this book can be blamed for supporting racial stereotypes. We certainly had no intention of insulting black people," Inoue said.

and from the Los Angeles Times:

Mori [an educational psychologist at Shinshu University in Nagano]said most Japanese were surprised to learn that “Little Black Sambo” had racist overtones. “It never occurred to us,” he said. “It was just a story.”

Intrigued by the controversy, Mori conducted academic experiments involving readers that he said showed the Japanese take nothing racist away from reading “Little Black Sambo.”

He offered a group of kindergarteners and another of senior citizens a look at two versions of the story: one with the Dobias’ drawings, another with the central character drawn as a black Labrador puppy. The test groups found both illustrated versions equally amusing.

Ergo, no racism, Mori concluded.

“The Japanese people can be racist when it comes to Koreans living here — it’s well known,” said psychologist Mori. “But racist against blacks?

“We have no experience in dealing with black people,” he continued. “Where would we get it from?”

Japanese evenly divided on immigrants

2005-05-28T13:11:00.000+09:00

The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 26, 2004

WASHINGTON: The Japanese are evenly split over whether foreigners are a good influence in their society, an Associated Press poll on immigration attitudes found.

Forty-four percent of respondents said immigrants were a good influence on their country, but the same percentage called immigrants a bad influence, researchers said. The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,000 Japanese residents, conducted between May 7 and 9, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Seventy-four percent of respondents said they believed foreigners take the jobs that Japanese nationals do not want. Fifty-eight percent said it was better for the country to have a variety of people with different religions, while 37 percent said a population that shared the same customs and traditions was better.

There are 2 million foreigners living in Japan, a country with 127 million people. The largest group is Koreans, many of them descendants of laborers taken there during Japan's 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

The second-largest group is from China, and the third group of immigrants is from Brazil, many of them descendants of Japanese who emigrated to South America.

Foreigners, particularly those from other countries in Asia or developing countries, face discrimination in employment and housing, and there have been incidents in which they have been barred from certain shops, bathhouses or bars. Authorities and media reports suggest that illegal aliens are behind a recent crime surge, but statistics show that foreigners commit crimes at about the same rate as Japanese.

Some are calling on Japanese leaders to loosen immigration laws to bring in more foreign workers to keep the economy growing, but the push so far has been unsuccessful. Japan's birthrate is among the lowest in the world, and many are concerned the country will not have enough taxpayers in the future to support the growing elderly population.

Suffrage for foreigners vital to democracy

2004-10-29T19:06:00.000+09:00

POINT OF VIEW/ Atsushi Kondo:Suffrage for foreigners vital to democracy
The Asahi Shimbun
October 21, 2004

I favor extending the right to vote in local elections to foreigners with permanent-resident status in Japan. The idea that only "native citizens'' are the true pillars of democracy is an outdated view at best.

There is no need to limit the definition of the term "resident'' in the concept of ``resident self-government'' to persons of Japanese nationality.

In local elections, ballots by their very nature address how best to administer the district in question. Non-Japanese who have put down firm roots and reside in such communities should be given the right to vote.

Expanding suffrage rights to such foreign residents will also play a significant role in compensating for the democratic deficit. As a case in point, consider the ties between rights and obligations. There is something amiss with banning certain taxpayers from casting votes in elections that determine how those revenues will be spent.

Moreover, such a step would also be instrumental in removing the logic of exclusion and creating a more equitable society where no one is estranged.

I further contend that this policy should not be limited to voting rights. Eligibility to stand for election should also be recognized. Under the doctrines of democracy, it is important for those with the right to choose to also be granted the ability to be chosen.

Nevertheless, I would not be opposed to an incremental approach in which voting rights are approved as the first phase. This could be followed by confirmation that no problems exist and only then authorization can be given for foreigners to run for office.

With the exception of Japan, all of the world's advanced democracies approve local voting rights for certain foreigners in one form or another. There are three basic patterns adopted for this recognition:

(1) Granting of local suffrage to all permanent-resident foreigners (adopted in the Netherlands, the five Scandinavian countries, etc.)

(2) Limiting voting rights to foreigners hailing from designated countries (France, Germany, Italy, etc.)

(3) Recognition of those rights in certain regions, states or local communities (and not the nation as a whole) (Switzerland, the United States, etc.)

One lesson we can learn from these precedents is the fact that even when local-election voting rights are granted to foreigners, no particular troubles seem to occur. In Japan as well, more than 100 municipalities have recognized the right of foreigners to vote in local referendums, and I have heard no reports of any dilemmas related to those policies.

There is one counterargument to the idea of limiting approval of voting rights to local elections, based on the alleged impracticality of dividing the political landscape into ``central'' vs. ``local'' government. Examining the countries that have opted for such approaches, however, we find that the overwhelming majority of governments do in fact limit their approval to the local domain.

I have also heard qualms expressed about how the interests of the Japanese people would be undermined by the priorities of other countries in terms of security, foreign relations and on other fronts. To that, I would reply that the local regions are not responsible for the upholding of national security, the exercising of diplomatic expertise or other sweeping policy matters.

In Japan, furthermore, mention of ``foreigner'' covers people from a wide range of countries-South and North Korea, China, Brazil, the Philippines and the United States to name just a few. The very concept of a dichotomy that pits the interests of "Japanese people'' against those of ``foreigners'' is specious in itself.

Another idea voiced in opposition to foreign voting rights is that it would make it easier to obtain Japanese citizenship. That view, however, reveals a basic ignorance of the issue at hand.

Granted, when adopted in combination with voting rights for foreign residents, a policy to streamline naturalization would generate synergistic effects.

However, it would not serve as a replacement for expanding suffrage to deserving non-Japanese.

For the sake of argument, let's say that it was made easier to obtain Japanese citizenship. Even under that scenario, though, a large number of foreigners in Japan would choose not to change their nationality.

The main reason is that in Japan and the majority of Asian countries that do not recognize multiple nationality, it is required that applicants give up their native citizenship when obtaining the new status.

I find it difficult to believe that insisting that permanent-resident foreigners obtain citizenship to be able to vote, and that nationality be rendered easier to hold, can truly resolve the problems posed by democratic deficit.

If multiple nationality status were to be recognized, it would be possible for recipients to vote in their country of residence without renouncing their original citizenship.

There is a trend afoot among the developed nations to allow this, and that is in fact the accepted policy in all of the Group of Eight industrialized countries other than Japan and Germany.

And now even Germany is moving to expand the list of exceptions to the ban on multiple citizenship, while concurrently granting local election voting rights to certain segments of foreigners. In the United States, while suffrage for foreigners is only allowed in certain regions, the status of multiple-nationality is effectively recognized for all practical intents and purposes.

Against this backdrop, the insularity of Japanese society is indisputable.

* * *
Atsushi Kondo is a professor at Kyushu Sangyo University, specializing in the Constitution. He is well-versed in human rights issues of foreigners.

Japan gets tough against human trade

2004-07-16T14:58:00.000+09:00

Tokyo, Japan, Jul. 5 (UPI) -- Alerted by USA and other countries, Japan is taking concrete steps to fight human trafficking, especially of foreign women for sexual exploitation.

The Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau decided Saturday to conduct intensive follow-up checks on foreign women who arrive in Japan on entertainment visas, reported the Yomiuri Shimbun Monday.

Justice Ministry figures indicate some 133,000 people entered Japan last year on entertainment visas, many of which were submitted by Japanese recruiting agents.

TRIB's special team will examine working conditions of the women. And when illegal activities are confirmed, their promoters will also be made accountable, unlike existing legal procedures.

Last month TRIB found 10 Philippine women acting as hostesses at a bar in Chiba Prefecture, while they had entered Japan on entertainment visas as performers. It was suspected the bar forced the women to have sex with customers, the paper added.

'Burakumin' descendants still suffering

2004-07-05T13:56:00.000+09:00

Links to former outcast class bring misery to relationships, workplace

from the Japan Times/AP:

A daughter's engagement is a time of joy for any proud father.
Not so for Ikuo Aoki: His daughter was thrown out of her boyfriend's family home when the young couple went there to announce their plans to marry.

The reason was unstated but well-understood -- Aoki is a descendant of Japan's former "burakumin" outcast class, a distinction that has brought his family a lifetime of ridicule, discrimination and abuse.

Japan put on sex-trade watch list

2004-06-16T17:46:00.000+09:00

from CNN:

Japan has thousands of victims of sexual slavery and is on a new U.S. "watch list" for failing to do more against the trafficking of humans by the underworld, a report released by the U.S. State Department says.

Japan "has a huge problem with slavery, particularly sex slavery, a tremendous gap between the size of the problem and the resources and efforts devoted to addressing the problem," senior State Department adviser John Miller said Monday.

Miller told reporters that he visited Japan, and "I found only two small shelters, each with eight to 10 beds."

He also criticized Japan for prosecutions that "did not appear to be a great effort" and said sentences were "relatively light" for people convicted of "sex tourism" there.

Immigration Web site for tips draws discrimination concerns

2004-02-01T16:47:00.000+09:00

Online `justice' protested
By TARO KARASAKI, The Asahi Shimbun
February 21, 2004

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International Japan lambasted the Justice Ministry on Friday for setting up a Web site function that allows the public to report on possible illegal foreign residents.

It said the system was a clear violation of human rights.

In a statement, the group expressed "strong concern,'' saying the Internet site could promote racial discrimination and cause stigma toward foreigners.

It called on the ministry to stop soliciting online tips.

The Web site function made its debut Monday and several people contacted the ministry about foreigners they found suspicious. The ministry resorted to the new tactic as part of a government pledge to halve the number illegally residing foreigners within five years.

There are an estimated 250,000 overstayers.

The site seeks detailed information on suspected overstayers, such as nationality, sex, profession, place of residence and where the person was last seen. The motive for reporting the information is also requested.

While the Web site asks for the informant's personal information-including their name, address and phone number-it is not mandatory.

Only the informant's age and prefecture of residence are required. The information is relayed to about 100 regional immigration bureaus nationwide.

The Tokyo-based National Network in Solidarity with Migrant Workers also sent a letter of protest to the Justice Ministry.

An official at the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau said the program is intended to help prompt reporting on possible illegal foreigners.

"The program is meant to increase the means by which people can report suspected cases,'' explained an Immigration Bureau official, adding that the bureau has been receiving tips from the public through mail or phone calls.

In 2002, regional bureaus received tips that led to the apprehension of about 75,000 foreigners, including those from anonymous sources. He said the Web site has already received about 200 tips.

"We have no intention of encouraging discrimination,'' the ministry official said, adding that tips will be thoroughly investigated, and information will not be leaked.

Groups providing medical and general counseling services for undocumented foreigners said that they fear the system could hinder humanitarian activities.

"It is like a reign of terror,'' said one official at the Catholic Tokyo International Center's Chiba branch. He added that some foreigners have already expressed fear about the online whistle-blowing system. The branch handles hundreds of cases each year, and was planning to start medical checkup services in March. But the official said the branch may have to reconsider this plan.