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Universal access — if you speak Japanese

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Despite 2 million foreign residents and calls for internationalization from within, Japan has a long way to go before becoming a multilingual society. The current state of health care is no exception. Be it university hospitals with cutting-edge research facilities or your neighborhood dental clinic, few medical institutions in Japan are capable of serving patients in a foreign language.

The gap between Japanese doctors and foreign patients can have serious repercussions. According to a 2005 report on maternity care for foreigners written by Dr. Hiroya Matsuo, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Kobe University, foreigners are “a high-risk group in health care,” due to language and culture problems. The report stated that the mortality rate among foreign pregnant women and infants here is “two or three times higher” than that of Japanese.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fs20060509a3.html

Japan rethinks immigration policy

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“Whether we like it or not, there are many foreigners who want to come to Japan. We must think about how we can accept those who want to work or settle in Japanese society, without friction,” Koizumi told members of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, according to the publicized minutes.

“If we accept foreigners beyond a certain scale…there must be friction. In that case, social costs would be tremendous,” Koizumi continued. “We must think how to improve the environment and education system in order to let foreigners work comfortably as a steady labor power.”

http://www.crisscross.com/jp/comment/933

Media oppose self-censorship clause in national referendum bill

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Media outlets are concerned a draft bill broadly agreed to by the three largest political parties to call on news organizations to censor themselves during a campaign for a proposed national referendum to revise the Constitution would undermine reporting and informed discussion of a constitutional amendment.

 http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060504TDY01003.htm

Constitution survey shows 77% oppose changing Article 9

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Seventy-seven percent of the public is against revising the Constitution’s war-renouncing Article 9, according to the results of a street survey released Wednesday by a citizens group [led by Ryuzaburo Noda, professor emeritus of mathematics at Okayama University].

Of the 28,169 people polled, 21,652, or 77 percent, opposed revision, 3,270, or 12 percent, supported revision, and 3,247, or 11 percent, had no opinion, the group said.

The survey started Saturday and ended on Wednesday, which was Constitution Day — the day the Constitution was promulgated on May 3, 1947.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060504a6.html

ARTICLE 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

Tottori’s Human Rights Ordinance is a case study in alarmism

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On Oct. 12, 2005, the Tottori Prefectural Assembly approved Japan’s first human rights ordinance, a local law forbidding and punishing racial discrimination. In a land where racial discrimination is not illegal, this is an historic occasion. Even a clarion call: If even rural Tottori can pass this, what’s stopping the rest of the country? But history pushed back. Five months later, Tottori Prefectural Assembly unpassed the ordinance.

What went wrong? This is a cautionary tale on how not to create landmark legislation.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20060502zg.html

Wave of retiring workers could force big changes

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All over Japan, companies are bracing for a demographic wave that will wash away many of their most experienced employees. The Japanese call it their “2007 problem.” Beginning next year, members of what Japan considers its baby boom generation will start hitting 60 and dropping out of the workforce. Some might postpone retirement, but they can’t work forever. Plunging birth rates mean there won’t be nearly enough young people to replace them.

Japan is just beginning to wrestle with a more controversial solution to the labor shortage: opening the floodgates to immigration.

Foreign workers account for just 1% of Japan’s labor force, vs. about 15% in the USA. Japan relaxes visa requirements for engineers and other specialized workers. But it is reluctant to let less-skilled workers into the country, limiting them to two- or three-year “training” contracts if it admits them at all.

“Sooner or later, we will need more people,” says Hidenori Sakanaka, retired head of the national immigration bureau office in Tokyo. “This is the time to create a new immigration policy.”

Sakanaka, the former immigration official, says Japanese bureaucrats are in denial. After retiring from his government job, he set up the Japan Immigration Policy Institute to advocate more liberal policies. He made what he admits is a utopian proposal: Admit 20 million foreigners in the next 50 years, up from less than 2 million now.

“Look at the speed of the decline in population. It’s unbelievable. Thirty million people will disappear,” he says. “There are two ways to go: Shrunken Japan ? and learning to live with it; and Big Japan ? we accept foreigners.”

http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-05-02-japan-econ-usat_x.htm
http://www.ncpa.org/newdpd/dpdarticle.php?article_id=3292

Immigration reform, political protests mark world May Day

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About 300,000 people across Japan took part in various May Day events calling for better working conditions. 

In Tokyo, 44,000 people gathered in a park before marching through the city center, waving colorful banners to protest what they see as growing social inequalities between the rich and poor.

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/may/02/yehey/world/
20060502wor1.html

The Rising Sun slowly sets

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Unfortunately, Japan is notoriously closed to foreigners, mainly because opinion polls show that most Japanese associate foreigners with crime. As of 2003, there were only 1.9 million registered foreign residents in Japan, equivalent to only 1.5% of the population. The real number of foreigners is even lower, considering that 600,000 are ethnic Koreans mostly born and raised in Japan and who speak only Japanese, and that most of the 270,000 registered Brazilians and 54,000 Peruvians are ethnic Japanese from South America who have returned to Japan.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/HD27Dh01.html

Aso family’s ’slave’ link under scrutiny

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While Taro Aso’s public statements as foreign minister have done little to help ease tensions between Tokyo and the rest of Asia, a family connection to wartime forced labor has raised further questions over his ability to oversee good relations with Japan’s neighbors.

Speaking at the opening of the Kyushu National Museum in Fukuoka last October, he described Japan as “one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture, and one race, the like of which there is no other on earth.” 

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20060425zg.html

Bill warrants thorough debate

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Only two weeks after it was sent to the chamber’s floor and with little debate, the Lower House has passed a bill that will allow the fingerprinting and photographing of foreigners as they enter Japan. 

At present, the United States is the only country that photographs and fingerprints entrants, although a few European countries fingerprint foreigners when they apply for visas at overseas diplomatic missions. 

Japan used to fingerprint foreign residents for residency-registration purposes. But facing strong opposition, especially from the country’s Korean residents, the Justice Ministry abolished the system in 1999. Even when it was taking fingerprints of foreign residents, the ministry’s official position was that the fingerprint records held by the ministry would never be used in criminal investigations. The Criminal Procedure Law also states that the authorities may fingerprint a person without a warrant only when the person is being held in custody as a criminal suspect.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20060420a1.html