Migrants and Migrant Workers in Japan
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- CHAPTER 6 Discriminatory Administrative Government Procedures in Residence Status Application Approval Procedures and Employment
- 【 Introduction 】
- 【 Background 】
- 【 The Content of the “Official Gazette” Amendment 】
- 【 The Discriminatory Effects and Cultivation of Stereotypes Caused by the “Official Gazette” Amendment 】
- 【 Conclusion 】
- 【 Multiple Forms of Discrimination and Disadvantages That Migrant Women Face 】 In Trafficking
- 3. Migrant Single Mother Families
- 4. Discriminatory Policy and Unfair Court Procedures
【Recommendations】 1. The government should confirm that it has an international legal obligation to ensure the right to education regardless of residence status and nationality. 2. The government should establish an education policy to secure the right to education for non-Japanese national and ethnic minority children in Japan. The content of the policy should first and foremost, respect the children’s identities and ensure the right to learn minority languages and cultures; and secondly, it should ensure the right to learn Japanese if a child’s first language is not Japanese. Additionally, in order to establish a concrete education policy, the voices of non-Japanese national and ethnic minority residents themselves should be directly sought, and a detailed nationwide survey should be carried out on the realities of language development, rates of non-attendance, acceptance rates into top tier schools, costs of educational fees, economic situations of the parents, etc., and disaggregated by nationality, ethnicity, sex, and age. 3. In order to ensure the right to education for non-Japanese national and ethnic minority children, and in particular, the right to learn one’s language and culture, the government should allow these children to actually exercise choice between Japanese schools and schools for non-Japanese national and ethnic minority children by recognizing these schools as a type of “officially accredited” ordinary school (and not as “miscellaneous category schools”) and allowing the recognition of these schools’ graduation credentials as ones that are equivalent to those of Japanese schools while providing these schools with at least the same amount of government funding that Japanese private schools receive. Additionally, until such fundamental policy reforms are established, the government should immediately amend the unfair policies extant within the current “miscellaneous category schools” framework with regard to tax exemption measures on donations and the differential recognition of college entrance eligibility between different schools for non-Japanese national and ethnic minority children. Finally, the government should take immediate actions to bail out schools that are not even recognized as “miscellaneous category schools,” and in particular, Brazilian and Peruvian schools that are at risk of closing down. CHAPTER 6 Discriminatory Administrative Government Procedures in Residence Status Application Approval Procedures and Employment Satoru FURUYA (Rights of Immigrants Network in Kansai (RINK)) Kaoru KOYAMA (Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan (SMJ))
【Introduction】 In November 2005, there was an incident where a Japanese girl was murdered in Hiroshima. One week later, a Peruvian man – who had a “long-term resident” residence status (i.e. visa) as a third generation non-Japanese national of Japanese descent – was arrested. On March 29, 2006, as a measure to both deal with this incident and maintain general public security, the Ministry of Justice added a “good behavior and conduct” requirement – a requirement stating that one must prove not to have a criminal record for the approval of “long-term resident” residence statuses. In other words, instead of taking measures to mitigate racial prejudices that could have resulted from the media’s excessive reports on crimes committed by non-Japanese nationals, the Ministry of Justice – which should be protecting human rights – did the opposite by enforcing a measure that was predicated on the linkage of crime to non-Japanese nationals with certain attributes. As a result of this, members of minority groups became targets of racial discrimination, and stereotypes against them were widely spread throughout Japanese society. Therefore, this measure violates Articles 2(1(a)) and 4(c) of the ICERD. Additionally, in lawsuits related to this, the defendant (the Japanese government) has argued that this new requirement does not violate the ICERD, and a district court verdict has supported this claim. 【Background】 With the 1989 revision to the Immigration Control Act, non-Japanese nationals of Japanese descent and their families were issued “long-term resident” residence statuses that allowed one to engage in remunerative activities. To second generation non-Japanese nationals of Japanese descent, there was the “spouse or child of a Japanese national” residence status, and for the spouses of second generation non-Japanese nationals of Japanese descent and third generation non-Japanese nationals of Japanese descent and their spouses and/or unmarried minor children, there was the “long-term resident” residence status. According to statistics on the number of “registered foreigners” in Japan, in 2008, there were 258,000 individuals with “long-term resident” residence statuses of which 137,000 were Brazilian and 19,000 were Peruvian. On the other hand, with regard to public security policy, a trend toward “penal populism” has recently become salient in Japan, and non-Japanese national residents have been the first to be targeted. Discourse claiming that crimes have increased in number and level of atrocity thereby leading to the critical deterioration of public security throughout society at large, has circulated among the media, police, and Diet, and took a turn for the worse, creating a dangerous situation which peaked in 2003 but continued to exist as several murder incidents were extensively broadcasted in 2005. The aforementioned incident in Hiroshima where a non-Japanese national was said to have “murdered a Japanese girl for sexual motivations” was one of those extensively broadcasted incidents. Under these circumstances, by stating that (1) due to this incident, there is “heightened anxiety among the Japanese people,” and (2) there are many foreigners35 with “long-term resident” residence statuses who have been arrested for criminal offenses,36 the Ministry of Justice announced the amendment to the “Official Gazette Regarding ‘Long-term Residents’” that will be discussed in this chapter. Subsequently, this amendment and the reasons behind it were picked up and broadcasted by the media. 【The Content of the “Official Gazette” Amendment】 The amendment to the Ministry of Justice’s “official gazette” (announced in March 2006) regarding “long-term residents” contains the following criteria:
Possession of a criminal record is a criterion that forecloses the possibility of residence status approval in general, and can also be used as a reason for deportation (under the Immigration Control Act). For such instances, being sentenced to “a year or more” of imprisonment or a crime involving drugs become reasons for adverse disposition for disapproval of residence status. In contrast to this, in the case of this amendment to the “official gazette” regarding “long-term residents,” all criminal punishments as well as minor punishments and juvenile probation become reasons for rejection. Although the presentation of background records issued by the police of the applicant’s home country is not required in regular screenings for residence status approval, the amended “official gazette” demands the presentation of such documentation for the aforementioned “long-term resident” applicants, and therefore, even background activities that fall short of criminal record offenses37 are also available for consideration and could work against the applicants. 【The Discriminatory Effects and Cultivation of Stereotypes Caused by the “Official Gazette” Amendment】 All of the following cases occurred after the amendment to the “official gazette” was made, and involve “long-term resident” residence status extension applications that were rejected because the applicant had been punished for a prior offense.
There are also cases in which the possession of a spouse or minor child has been considered, ultimately resulting in the approval of residence status extension applications despite the fact that one has a prior criminal record. However, in the two aforementioned cases, such considerations were not adequately made.39
In August 2007, C brought charges claiming the invalidity of his residence status extension rejection, but lost the case in the district court. He is currently residing in Japan without legal documentation, and no remedies have been sought. In court, the plaintiff claimed that the “official gazette” amendment not only “poses a significantly grave discriminatory effect on the entire Nikkeijin [non-Japanese nationals of Japanese descent] population as a group that has been categorized on the basis of race and other attributes,” but also embodies the racial discrimination stipulated in ICERD Article 1(1) while violating Articles 2(1(a)) and 4(c). Additionally, this “official gazette” amendment has promoted the entrenchment of media-instigated stereotypes that link non-Japanese nationals to crime. Wide-scale coverage and explanations that linked the amendment to the murder incident in Hiroshima and other crime statistics were made by the Minster of Justice in a press conference the day before the “official gazette” was amended, as well as on the Ministry of Justice Immigration Bureau’s homepage (since April 2006), the official announcement in the aforementioned Immigration Control Report (footnote 1), and the media. 【Conclusion】 Therefore, this measure violates ICERD Articles 2(1(a)) and 4(c).
【The Problem】 With the recent revision of the Employment Measures Act, since October 2007, the government made it mandatory for employers when hiring non-Japanese nationals to confirm and notify the head of the local public employment security office of their names, residence statuses, and lengths of stay. A punishment of up to 300,000 yen (approximately $3,000 USD) for violating employers was also established. When hiring, employers are required to ascertain whether a job applicant is a “foreign national” by means of using one’s “ordinary powers of attention” to make judgments based on the applicant’s “name or native language.”40 As mentioned in Chapter 1 of this report (p.3), there has been a rapid increase in Japanese nationals who have ethnic roots in other parts of the world. To require employers to judge applicants by their names is predicated on the assumption that Japanese nationals all have Japanese-like names, but this assumption contradicts the Ministry of Justice’s claim that it does not demand that non-Japanese nationals change their names upon naturalization (for more details, see Chapter 4). In reality, there are also many Japanese nationals whose native language is not Japanese. Instead of providing employers with a means for differentiation between Japanese nationals and non-Japanese nationals, this new guideline poses the risk of facilitating segregation as well as arbitrary judgment and discrimination on the basis of race, skin color, and ethnic/tribal origins. 【Conclusion】 Therefore, this measure violates ICERD Articles 2(1) and 4(c). CHAPTER 7 Migrant Women in Japan: Victims of Multiple Forms of Discrimination and Violence and the Government’s Lack of Concern Leny TOLENTINO (KALAKASAN Migrant Women Empowerment Center) 【Introduction】 Japan has continuously needed migrant women for its sex industry, shortage of wives for its male nationals, and replacement unskilled labor for its service and manufacturing industries. In response to these needs, migrant women – mostly from Asia and Latin America – have come or have been brought to Japan on tourist, entertainer, spouse or relative of a Japanese national (Nikkeijin), and trainee visas since the 1980s. However, even after nearly three decades, many migrant women are still treated as the “other” and excluded from Japanese society and its social safety nets. Widespread discriminatory attitudes and prejudices on the basis of appearance, speech, customs, and cultures, as well as feelings of indifference toward migrant women among government officials and the populace continue to exist and are also codified in extant policies and legislation. Many migrant women survive with minimal protection under the law, have limited access to basic information and opportunities for training, empowerment, and development, and are also almost completely deprived of opportunities to participate in decision-making processes. Most vulnerable are those migrant women who are victims of DV and/or trafficking. 【Multiple Forms of Discrimination and Disadvantages That Migrant Women Face】
The government adopted the Comprehensive Action Plan of Measures to Combat Trafficking in Persons (2004), which was followed by amendments to the penal code (2005) and the Immigration Standard Ministerial Ordinance (2006) – regarding the cut down of “entertainer” visa issuances – and an amendment to the Entertainment Business Law (2005). Yet, in response to stricter regulations, trafficking operations have simply become more invisible, coercive, and controlling, and there has been a tangential increase in migrant women who are lured to come to Japan with non-entertainer visa statuses – such as tourist, trainee, and marriage visas – and are later forced to go into prostitution by their husbands or brokers. In some instances, if they enter into fake marriages, they are forced to pay both the broker and the husband for 2 to 3 years, or as long as the fake marriage lasts. A typical case in point would be a Filipino woman who wanted to end her marriage with her abusive Japanese husband. He had assured her legal stay in Japan as his wife for a monthly fee of 50,000 yen (approximately $500 USD) but refused her divorce request because she had not finished paying the 3 million yen ($30,000 USD) she had agreed to pay him.41 2. In Domestic Violence
International marriages in Japan have been increasing since the 1980s,42 and domestic violence remains a major problem for non-Japanese women in such marriages where they are six times more likely to be abused than Japanese women (Table 1). DV often originates from their partners’ prejudices against migrant women and from their low regard for people from developing countries. Aside from life endangering physical and sexual abuse, threats and derogatory judgmental insults inflict psychological damage and lower self-esteem and confidence. Threats like, “You cannot live in Japan without me,” “I will not extend your visa,” and “This is Japan, and custody over the child will always be mine [husband] – if you leave, I will report it to the immigration authorities and they will not believe what you say,” are examples of such derogatory treatment that have been reported to KALAKASAN over the past 7 years. Their lives are sometimes circumscribed by their spouses’ intent to force them to “become Japanese” by being over-critical of the way they rear and discipline their children, and by prohibiting them from speaking their own language inside the house and associating with co-ethnics. Table 1. Percentage of DV Victims per 100,000 People43
There is a dire need for gender- and multiculturalism-sensitive training programs for government staff and interpreters at all levels of the government to assume responsibility for supporting migrant women victims so that victimization is not repeated. In 2007, 8.95% of women in protective custody at women’s counseling centers were non-Japanese women.44 Though the DV Law guarantees protection to all women victims, undocumented migrant women and their children are minimally protected, and are only eligible to stay in a shelter for two weeks, and are excluded from long-term support and particularly access to livelihood assistance and other support services. At the same time, it takes months or years before undocumented DV victims and their children are granted residence permits in Japan. Relegated to an even lower social existence are undocumented migrant women without children or those who have children who are in the custody of the abusive partner. Such women are frequently forced to go back to their country of origin. For such reasons, a significant number of undocumented migrant women and children choose to bear abuses, or if they are already in a shelter, to return to their violent partners or become homeless.45 Many of these women do not have understandable and accessible information about support services and details about their legal and human rights. It is therefore paramount that the government effectively disseminates such information in a systematic and culturally sensitive way. 3. Migrant Single Mother Families
Every year, the number of migrant single mother families is increasing as international marriage divorce rates increase. In 2007, 7.15% of all divorces in Japan were international marriage divorces.46 Migrant single mother families face many difficulties and are marginalized due to the government’s lack of interest to provide them with adequate protection. Migrant single mothers have often experienced discrimination and abuse or abandonment from their partners and/or in-laws, and report such experiences as the main reasons for the divorce or separation.47 4. Discriminatory Policy and Unfair Court Procedures
The fact that visa extensions for migrant women often depend on the will and discretion of their Japanese husbands and whether or not the woman has Japanese children, makes their legal standing and livelihood stability in Japan very precarious and vulnerable to the whims of their spouses and the government. Unfortunately, the government passed an amendment to the Immigration Control Act in July 2009, specifying that migrant women must report any changes to their livelihood situations like changes in address and workplace. Individuals who fail to do this within 14 days are subject to a fine, and failure to do anything for 3 months could result in visa cancellation. This revision could escalate fear among migrant women – especially those who are married to or living with an abusive Japanese partner – and would allow Japanese husbands to take advantage of their vulnerabilities thereby putting them in more risk of being abused, while making it more difficult for DV victims to seek rescue and protection.
A migrant woman who escaped from the abuse and maltreatment of her husband and in-laws who is presently undergoing court procedures for the custody of her child and divorce, was denied a visa extension even with a note from her lawyer stating that she was in the middle of settling a divorce case. When she verbally appealed to the immigration officer, she was called a liar. It was not until her lawyer accompanied her that she was considered.48 From this example, we can see that the court also uses the unstable visa statuses of migrant women as bases for giving custody of the child to the Japanese spouse, thereby denying the woman of the same right to custody, simply because she is “non-Japanese.” There are many other migrant women who experience similar situations.
Furthermore, under the revised immigration law, undocumented residents can no longer claim any public services and assistance through the local municipality offices in the areas in which they live. Before a local municipal office assumes the responsibilities of accepting a registrant’s child into a local school, extending public assistance to migrant women, etc., it requires one to prove his/her residence in the area. Proving and registering one’s residence is possible if one obtains a Resident Card from the immigration authorities, but these cards are only issued to “legal” migrants. The exclusion from local municipal registration therefore means the denial of rights and exclusion from public assistance. Many undocumented migrants are women who are former wives of Japanese nationals, and are pregnant with or live with children who were born between them and their Japanese partners but have not received official recognition from the father, due to the father’s failure or refusal to do so. It is these people who are put at risk the most by the revised law. Yüklə 458 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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