Immigration

The House of Representatives at its plenary session on Tuesday passed a bill to amend the Nationality Law to enable a child born out of wedlock to a Japanese man and a foreign woman to obtain Japanese nationality if the father recognizes his paternity.
The bill will be immediately sent to the House of Councillors and is expected to pass the upper chamber for enactment by the end of the current parliamentary session through Nov. 30.

The government proposed revisions to the law after the Supreme Court ruled in June unconstitutional a provision in the law requiring parents to be married in order for their children to be granted Japanese nationality.

The bill includes a provision for the imposition of prison terms of up to one year or fines of up to 200,000 yen on anyone falsely filing for the paternity of a Japanese man to be recognized in order to secure Japanese nationality.

A group of lawmakers mainly from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are against holding a vote, saying the revision could lead to an increase in false nationality claims.

At present, a child born outside a marriage can obtain nationality if the Japanese father admits paternity when the child is still in the mother’s womb. In other words, nationality is not granted to a child who receives paternity recognition after birth.

The envisioned amendment would enable nationality to be given to any child born out of wedlock as long as he or she receives parental recognition.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94H47AO0&show_article=1

Mixed couples’ kids could have two nationalities

Liberal Democratic Party member Taro Kono said Thursday he has submitted a proposal to an LDP panel he heads calling for the Nationality Law to be revised to allow offspring of mixed couples, one of whom being Japanese, to have more than one nationality.

The panel will scrutinize the proposal, but there is no time limit to formalize it as “this is not something that needs to be done anytime soon,” he said.

Also under the proposal, foreigners would be able to obtain Japanese citizenship without giving up their original one. But the proposal does not say whether those who had had multiple nationalities and gave up one or more to retain their Japanese citizenship can regain other nationalities.

The proposal would also affect babies born in countries that grant nationality to those born there regardless of their parents’ nationalities, including the United States, Brazil and Australia.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081114a1.html

Symposium highlights the need for comprehensive planning in the face of growing immigration

Hidenori Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, said Japan should be prepared to raise the ratio of foreign immigrants to 10 percent of the population in the next 50 years as the population rapidly declines.

Sakanaka stressed that immigration policy should place importance on nurturing the talents of newcomers by providing more education and training opportunities.

“There is also a need for a change in the Japanese mind-set toward foreigners,” Sakanaka said.

Brazilian lawyer Etsuo Ishikawa, who provides legal advice for the Brazilian community in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, which has the largest population of Brazilians in Japan, said the primary cause of problems besetting the immigrants is the lack of social welfare coupled with unstable employment conditions.

“When the basics of working conditions are met, more parents will be able to appreciate the importance of providing education for their children,” he said.

Ishikawa stressed that direct employment by companies must be promoted as many Brazilians are temporary workers in unstable conditions without social security.

“The government must implement policies that secure the fundamental rights of the people who lead their lives here,” Ishikawa said, adding that giving voting rights to non-Japanese residents in local elections is another important issue that needs consideration.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081114f1.html

Many observers of the Nationality Law have welcomed the government’s proposed revision approved Tuesday by the Cabinet that will soon allow hundreds of children born out of wedlock to Japanese men and foreign women to obtain Japanese nationality if the father recognizes paternity even after birth.

Despite what seems to be a positive move, however, some also predict many challenges ahead before the children entitled to Japanese nationality can actually acquire it.

“The revision will mean a lot to the children, because (nationality) is part of their identity and will secure them a more stable status and future,” said Rieko Ito, secretary general of the Tokyo-based Citizens Network for Japanese-Filipino Children, which supports Filipino women and children in Japan who often live under permanent resident status.

The scheduled amendment is in line with the June 4 Supreme Court ruling that a provision of the law on the status of children born out of wedlock was unconstitutional.

Today, the law still reads that a child born out of wedlock between a Japanese father and a foreign mother can get Japanese nationality only if the father admits paternity during the mother’s pregnancy, or if the couple get married before the child turns 20, but not after birth.

Thus, children whose fathers acknowledge paternity after their birth are not granted Japanese nationality, which the top court declared a violation of equal rights.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081105f2.html

A group of 26 cities and towns with large foreign communities adopted a declaration Wednesday calling on the government to form a new agency to comprehensively deal with immigration policies and beef up efforts to strengthen Japanese language education.

“More and more foreigners are expected to come to Japan as workers in the years ahead and it will no longer be an issue concerning specific regions,” said Yasutomo Suzuki, mayor of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, at the group’s conference in Tokyo.

The gathering assembled about 470 people from the 26 municipalities in seven prefectures as well as officials from the Foreign Ministry, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, and three other related ministries.

Soichi Motai, mayor of Ueda, Nagano Prefecture, suggested that municipalities join hands with local companies to create funds to boost opportunities for foreign residents to learn Japanese.

A survey by the Immigration Bureau, part of the Justice Ministry, showed Japan had 2.15 million registered foreign residents as of 2007, about 1 1/2 times more than a decade ago.

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Japan should expedite an increase in immigrant labor to engage in fields ranging from welfare to manufacturing, construction and agriculture to offset the shrinking domestic workforce, the nation’s largest business lobby said Tuesday.

Japan has essentially not accepted unskilled workers in those areas, but the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) now argues the country should introduce “medium-skilled” workers, the group said in a report.

The transport and fishery industries should also be opened to foreign labor, Keidanren said.

The federation argued that Japan should accept unskilled workers as well as recruit more foreign students and provide social infrastructure to encourage immigrants to stay for a long time. It said this can be accomplished through such measures as stabilizing their legal status and helping them study Japanese.

Keidanren, like the government, has until now welcomed only high-skilled foreign workers, including information technology engineers, office professionals and language teachers.

The proposal underlines the serious labor shortage facing Japan.

The population, now at 128 million, is estimated to drop by about 30 percent to roughly 90 million in 50 years. By that time there will be 1.3 persons in the 15-64 age bracket tor each person aged 65 or older, compared with 3.3 in 2005.

“The business circle is deeply worried about the aging population,” Keidanren Managing Director Masakazu Kubota said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081015a1.html

Japan’s mission to boost the number of overseas visitors suffered a setback this week after hundreds of hoteliers and inn owners said they would turn away foreign guests.

Of the 7,068 hotels and inns that responded to a survey by the communications ministry, 62% had received at least one foreign guest last year, while 38%, or 2,655 establishments, had received none. Of that number, 72% said they would prefer their doors to remain closed to non-Japanese.

The results were published only days after Japan’s newly formed tourist agency said it planned to increase the number of foreign visitors to 10 million by the end of the decade, compared with 8.35 million last year. It then hopes to double the number to 20 million by 2020.

Many cited language problems, while others said they did not have the facilities for foreign guests, although what that actually meant wasn’t specified. Some said they would be unable to respond properly if any problems involving foreigners arose on their premises.

Smaller hotels and traditional inns, called ryokan, are most reluctant to court the international tourist yen.

In theory at least, the country’s thousands of ryokan, often located deep in the mountains or near the coast, are supposed to offer old-fashioned hospitality: faultless service, rooms with sliding paper screens and tatami-mat floors, communal hot spring baths and exquisitely presented local delicacies.

“The survey sheds light on a pretty dark part of Japan,” said Debito Arudou, an American-born naturalised Japanese citizen.

Arudou, the author of a book on racial discrimination in his adopted country, called on local government to enforce anti-discrimination laws and revoke the business licenses of offending hotels and inns.

“They are supposed to be part of the service industry, but they’re not providing that service to foreigners.

“They claim they can’t provide foreign guests with a proper standard of service, so instead they deny it to them altogether. That’s arrogance on a grand scale.”
Officials from Visit Japan, a government-sponsored tourist drive launched in 2003, conceded there was little they could do to encourage reluctant hoteliers to change their ways.

“It is up to the individual hotels and inns to decide who they have as guests, but we would like them to realise that the influx of foreign visitors represents a huge business opportunity,” Daisuke Tonai, a spokesman for the Japan National Tourism Organisation, told the Guardian.

“Although we can’t force them to act, we certainly want hotels and inns to do more to make overseas visitors feel more welcome.”
Renewed efforts to woo overseas visitors got off to an inglorious start last month when Nariaki Nakayama, the transport minister, was forced to resign after saying that Japan was “ethnically homogeneous” and that the Japanese, in general, “do not like foreigners”.

His replacement, Kazuyoshi Kaneko, whose brief includes tourism, admitted that foreigners were unwelcome in some places.

“Some people might not like the idea of having foreign tourists very much,” he told the Japan Times. “Although it’s not our intention to change the people’s mindset, [the tourism agency’s] major task will be to attract a large number of foreign tourists.”

Though tourist numbers have risen significantly from 5.21 million five years ago, Japan has strict visa and immigration rules and has been criticised for its sometimes frosty attitude towards outsiders.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/10/japan-japan

Most Japanese inns and hotels that didn’t have foreign guests last year don’t want any in the future, according to a government survey released Thursday.

While the majority of such establishments do accept foreigners, the survey showed the country’s more traditional inns are not as hospitable, even as the government mounts a major campaign to draw more tourists from abroad.

Japan’s countryside is dotted with thousands of small, old-fashioned lodgings called “ryokans.” Many are family run and offer only traditional Japanese food and board, such as raw seafood delicacies, simple straw-mat floors and communal hot spring baths.

Some such establishments have barred foreign guests in the past, leading to lawsuits and government fines for discrimination.

The survey carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs shows that 72 percent of establishments that didn’t have foreign customers in the past year don’t want any, and the majority are ryokans and hotels with fewer than 30 rooms. Such businesses said they are unable to support foreign languages and that their facilities are not suited to foreigners.

While more than 60 percent of the country’s inns and hotels hosted foreign guests last year, the results indicate it may be hard to expand this number.

Tokyo spends about $35 million per year on its “Visit Japan Campaign,” which aims to draw 10 million foreigners to the country for trips and business in the year 2010, up from 8.35 million last year.

Campaign spokesman Ryo Ito said in general Japanese inns have been accepting of foreigners, noting that some now take foreign currencies and have staff that can speak multiple languages. He said the dire state of the global economy was more of a concern.

“The business environment has become very harsh,” he said.

The government survey was done by mail earlier this year, and 7,068 establishments responded.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/10/09/japan.inn.room.foreigners.ap/index.html