Tag Archives: human-rights

Be a true advanced nation, Japan

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by Tatsuya Haishi

Japan is known as a country that is reluctant to accept refugees compared to other advanced countries. I know that receiving refugees or asylum seekers has many difficulties. There are may be illegal aliens pretending to be refugees. It is need that the budgets to give protection to them. Still, rights of human beings are more important. It is natural that refugees and asylum seekers live comfortably as humanity; moreover, I think they will benefit Japan in the future.

The working population of Japan has been declining and Japan will need more labor. Allowing to refugees or asylum seekers and hiring them is one of the effective solutions against this problem. Of course employment issue of Japanese young people is also important but I do not think the employment rate of the youth of Japan would increase even without accepting refugees and asylum seekers. Therefore more Japanese companies should hire them like Uniqlo, which has a sort of exchange internship program for refugees. One of the Uniqlo’s Japanese staff says “Refugees have various experiences, so the Japanese staff are also learning a lot from them.” I think a refugee who can take this program is limited and he or she is really smart but there must be other refugees who are much more talented than Japanese workers. Maybe refugees will lead Japan’s economy in the upcoming aging society with fewer children. However, we must not forget that rights of a refugee are far more important than expectation for a refugee as labor. Ensuring refugee’s human rights takes top priority.

I believe that Japan has a duty to help refugees, but if I say that, there must be people who insist, “You are looking down on refugees!” or “The word of ‘help’ sounds condescending!” I hate arrogant attitude, too. Yet, we should discuss whether I am condescending or not after refugees are guaranteed their safety. No one can choose where they are born and they are brought up. I was born in Japan and have never left from this country. However, if I was born in a troubled area, I might be a refugee now and leave from my homeland. The only reason I am not a refugee is because I was born in Japan. The only reason I think that Japan should accept more refugees is because I was born in an advanced country with my right to live. Japan has to allow to refugees just because Japan is an advanced nation. There is no reason except that.

Japan and Refugees

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by Shoki Fujimoto

I think Japan should keep current stance on acceptance of refugee. There are some reasons why I think so. First, Japan is not suitable for accepting refugees or immigration. Japanese national feeling is kind of exclusive for foreign people. This attitude was promoted by the fact that Japan has not accepted refugees historically. Japanese people tend to feel fear against foreign people for some reasons. Moreover, there are not small numbers of people that kind of look down on refugees.

Second, we cannot ignore historical reason. Those who that say America and European countries’ cases as why Japan should take in refugees often say that we had better follow the stance of international society. According Ministry of Justice, Japan admitted only 21 refugees in 2011. On the other hand, America approves on average about 90 thousand refugees every year. However, this opinion does not include important factor that Japan has been a country of “Japanese”. This does not mean that I would like to say “Japan is monoracial country and there is no foreigner in Japan”. Needless to say, there has been and are many foreign people in Japan, and they contributed to Japan’s development by working for Japan like introducing culture, and bringing technology. However, comparing Japan with America and European countries, power of foreign people that contributed to build country is very small. America is very new country created by foreigners and in Europe, there has been numberless exchanges including war. It means that such countries were built by foreigners. Therefore, variation of way of building country makes difference on the stance on foreigners.

Third, acceptance of refugees has few merits on Japan. In our debate in EKK class, affirmative side claimed that we can solve Japan’s declining birthrate and aging population problem by refugee’s labor. However, we cannot agree with this opinion. First of all, I do not think it is good that compensating vacuum of labor by using refugees. If we aim to supply labor by foreign people, we should increase number of immigrants, but Japanese literacy is must, I think. Besides, designating refugee’s work and where they live means restricting their human rights. This is reverse of intension.

Certainly, it is so sad to refuse refugees who have run away from their countries, and personally I would like to admit refugees. However, my intention is one thing, and Japan’s national interest is another thing. Even if current Japan’s stance changes, it will take a long time to change its policy. To conclude, Japan should not change its stance if truly we aim at Japan’s national interest.

References

Ministry of Justice. [http://www.moj.go.jp/nyuukokukanri/kouhou/nyuukokukanri03_00085.html] (retrieved May 30, 2013).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan [http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/nanmin/main3.html] (retrieved May 30, 2013)

Japan should become a leader of global society

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by Kazuki Ando

The ratio of refugees’ acceptance is very low in Japan. This data shows that Japan doesn’t accept refugee in some reason. The reasons why Japan doesn’t accept are that Japan is academic career-based society and Japan has large population despite small country. However Japan should accept more refugees.

First, to protect human rights is much more superior than not accept refugee. While most developed country tends to accept refugee, Japan doesn’t. To accept more refugees is possible to change the view of Japan from other country. To become a leader of international society like the U.S. and countries in Europe. Some Asian countries like Singapore accepted refugees are succeeded as well. In fact, it takes much time to make up some supports for refugee because Japanese have stereotypes, and then they regard as “gaijin”. I think it is not big deal if much time passed in order to change because Japan took much time to change into democracy. Besides some multicultural countries can make structures for refugee, so Japan also can do. This is good opportunity to change into multicultural and to contribute international society.

Second, to accept refugee doesn’t have any demerits. Some people say that to accept refugee has some demerits for Japanese society in terms of public safety and employment rate. According to metropolitan police department, the criminal rate of foreigner is quite fewer than that of Japanese. I think the public safety in Japan don’t become bad. Next, now employment rate is very low in Japan, so we can see the news that university student is hard to get a better job. Now Japan has this serious situation, thus Japan can’t afford to accept refugee in terms of employment rate. I don’t agree with that opinion because what refugee work in Japan brings good effect to Japanese society. For example, development of economy, rise of quality of products and so on. Refugee has strong will to work in Japan in order to live in Japan. If they don’t work hard, they can’t live in Japan because Japanese government did not give them enough treatment to live. In addition, Japan has some under populated areas and Japan is declining birth rate and an ageing population society, so Japan needs more workers to prevent such a problem. To accept more refugees is going to be a development of economy for Japan.

To sum up, Japan should accept more refugees to become leader in global society and to gain the development of Japanese economy. It must be necessary of much time, so Japan should gradually change the way of thinking about “gaijin” and make enough supports for refugee to live in Japan.

The Issues of Undocumented Immigrants

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by Kohei Nomura

Almost automatically, I am engaged in Japan’s social welfare and security system. In addition, I guess that almost all people including you are the same. I could not imagine how we should survive if these kinds of rights had gone. However, in this world, there are the undocumented people in term of legal status. They do not have the right to receive any administrative service. It remains as the taboo but big problem of societies.

When people illegally cross the border, or overstay after their visa’s expiration, the immigrants become undocumented. Because they are staying illegally, they cannot even get their legal status. In other words, even if they are violated or treated terrible way ignoring human rights, they cannot claim to police. In this case, the social structure that undocumented immigrants are never treated as ordinary people tends to stuck in the countries’ low-level society. Moreover, even if they catch diseases, they cannot get a tax deduction. It is easily assumed that undocumented immigrants cannot earn enough money to pay full medical expenses, so that they probably cannot go to the hospital. Undocumented immigrants are afraid of the detection of the fact they are illegal immigrants; therefore, the terrible structure among undocumented immigrants would be hidden and be taboo. Nevertheless, the realities of the undocumented immigrants are quite severe.

The only way to recover the administrative service for the undocumented immigrants is to go back to their mother countries. (Actually there are some ways to get a legal status in the escaped country, but the opportunities are extremely limited.) Conservatives may say that these severe treatments are undocumented immigrants’ fault because they are illegally there. It is partly true, and they should go back to their mother countries if possible. However, the children of illegal immigrants cannot do so, because the children are grown up with the countries’ identity and education of the countries’ language. If the country commit deportation of the children, it is wrong as the humanistic perspectives. The children have never committed the crime like illegal immigration, unlike their parents.

In conclusion, politically, the special decision how the country engages the undocumented immigrants in the area of humanity to get rid of violation of human rights of undocumented immigrants. Moreover, we should rethink of how we should accept the immigrants.

The Future of Undocumented Immigrants

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by Yuuka Kageyama

An undocumented immigrant is someone who resides in a country without proper documentation and the number of it is estimated over 10 million in the US. Sometimes the adjective “illegal” is used to describe certain immigrants in many places including public organization. However, some people have come to disagree to the use of the word by saying that it’s inaccurate and improper.  The problem over undocumented immigrants is dividing the recognition about them in the US.

It is true that they are not legitimate residents because they entered into the country and keep staying there without getting the permission from the government by using fake passport or overstaying their visas for instance. That’s why they are called as illegal immigrants and some people say it’s not unfair to deport them.

In spite of such viewpoints against undocumented immigrants, they are also regarded as important elements in part because they can contribute to the US economy by paying tax. Moreover, they can have jobs which Americans don’t want to have, and meet the demand in the low cost labor. Moreover, undocumented immigrants, facing to many difficulties such as discrimination and insufficient access to medical care, education and to court because of the fear to be arrested by the police, struggle to change the situation to get a legal status and citizenship.

As can be seen above, there are both opponents and proponents. What should government do about this problem? I think the Dream Act, which provides conditional permanent residency to the young, would be effective because it can protect the children who have no responsibility to their status. In my opinion, the situation of children and that of parents are different. Children have no choice but to be undocumented immigrants because of their parents. For them, new country is their only place to live in and feel attachment to. They should not be treated as illegal, much less deported. As the Convention on the Rights of the Children states, children need to be fully protected irrespective of their situation and the country they belong to. Although there are still problems, it would be easier to reach an agreement on the protection of the children. I don’t think it is better for government to accept more and more immigrants but undocumented immigrants, especially young people in the country should be given the right in some ways so that they can dream hopeful future, which can also contribute to the country.

Refugees in Japan: Problems and Solutions

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by Tomoka Otani

When we started to learn about refugees in Japan, I did not have any idea what their problems are or I did not care much about them because I have never met refugees in Japan. However, as I studied the situations of refugees in Japan, I came to think that we needed to improve the Japanese system of accepting refugees in order to provide them with better lives in terms of supporting them economically and mentally.

As we talked about the current situation of accepting refugees in Japan, I came to realize that the process which refugees are going through in order to become officially accepted refugees is quite tough. For example, from 1981 to 2005, Japan accepted only 376 people as refugees though it received 3928 applications from all over the world, and it is extremely few numbers compare to other developed countries. Why does Japan accept many fewer refugees than other developed nations? The biggest reason is that there are still discrimination and prejudice against foreigners in Japan especially in terms of immigrants and refugees who are thought to be unstable in Japanese society. They may have been discriminated against at work, daily lives, or school just by their looks or their status that they are immigrants or refugees. However, it is not surprising for me because I have never met people who are immigrants or refugees from other countries. I think, in generally, Japanese people are not familiar with living with foreigner, immigrants and refugees in the same society.

As I mentioned the biggest problem of accepting refugees in Japan, I am going to state solutions for the current situation of accepting refugees. Firstly, I think Japanese people have to be aware of the existence of refugees in Japan, we may have heard about them on the news or in the newspapers but we naturally think it is the problem of other countries because there are not many refugees around us. We need to change our educational system in order to introduce the existence of refugees and what they have been though in their home countries. Secondly, we need to change the governmental economical support for the refugees because their lives are not stable at first and they might not have enough money to support themselves.

As I mentioned above, changing people’s attitude toward refugees and economical support are the two main solutions that I think it is important in order to improve the current situation of accepting refugees and to provide refugees with better lives after their struggles. I know it is extremely difficult for Japanese people to accept foreign refugees because of our cultures and prejudice against them, however, refugees do not have any choice but to live in another society because of various threats from their home countries, and I personally think we need to reconsider the reasons why they had to escape from their home countries and we must treat them with some kind of respect.