A record 449 corporations and organizations that accepted foreign nationals under a controversial trainee and intern system were found to have treated them unlawfully and abusively in 2007, the Justice Ministry said.

The figure is twice the number from a year earlier. The ministry said employers had violated labor laws in 178 cases. Companies sent trainees and interns to workplaces other than those they had reported to the ministry in 115 cases. In 98 cases, they illegally forced participants to work overtime or on holidays, the ministry said.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200805120061.html

Japan’s ruling party is considering plans to encourage foreign workers to stay in the country long-term, a daily reported Monday after the birth rate fell for the 27th successive year.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has proposed setting up an “immigration agency” to help foreign workers — including providing language lessons, the Nikkei economic daily said without naming sources.

The party also intends to reform current “training” programmes for foreign workers, which have been criticised for giving employers an excuse for paying unfairly low wages, the paper said.

LDP lawmakers believe that immigration reform will help Japanese companies secure necessary workers as the declining birthrate is expected to further dent in the nation’s workforce, it said.

A group of about 80 LDP lawmakers will draw up a package of proposals by mid-May, it said. No immediate comment was available from the party on Monday.

A government report on the falling birthrate warned in April that Japan’s workforce could shrink by more than one-third to 42.28 million by 2050 if the country fails to halt the decline.

The government said Monday the number of children in Japan has fallen for the 27th straight year to hit a new low.

Children aged 14 or younger numbered 17,250,000 as of April 1, down by 130,000 from a year earlier, the internal affairs ministry said in an annual survey released to coincide with the May 5 Children’s Day national holiday.

The figure is the lowest since 1950 when comparable data started.

The ratio of children to the total population sank for 34 years in a row to 13.5 percent, also a record low, the ministry said.

Local media said it was also believed to be the world’s lowest, coming below 14.1 percent for both Italy and Germany.

Japan has struggled to raise its birthrate with many young people deciding that families place a burden on their lifestyles and careers.

Japan’s population has been shrinking since 2005 and the country is not producing enough children to prevent the drop.

The average number of children a woman has during her lifetime now hovers around 1.3, well below the 2.07 necessary to maintain the population.

Government leaders in Japan, which largely thinks of itself as ethnically homogeneous, have rejected the idea of allowing mass-scale immigration.

Some politicians have argued an influx of immigrants would lead to lower wages for Japanese workers and a higher crime rate.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gtPwefRUpgnEjK1cv6CefxzYpwFg

The DPJ lawmakers in favor of alien suffrage held seminars almost every other week until the end of March, inviting guest speakers on both sides of the issue to clarify their ideas.

In early April, the group declared that voting rights should be given to all permanent residents who come from countries with which Japan has official diplomatic ties, thus excluding North Koreans.

Under the envisaged bill, permanent residents who wish to vote would be granted the right upon application.

“Japan is increasingly depopulated, and it’s important to get foreign residents to join together in the process of developing local communities. But to encourage their sense of being an interested group themselves, it’s necessary to give them their rights and duties,” said Shinkun Haku, an Upper House lawmaker and member of the group. “This in the end will benefit Japan.”

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080503f1.html

Japan plans to increase the length of stay for long-term visa holders who have Japanese-language ability, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said today.

The government may expand the period of stay for foreigners who know Japanese to five years from three, Komura told reporters at a briefing in Tokyo today. Non-Japanese who use the language in their work, such as flight attendants, may face easier entry requirements, he said.

“This is to relax regulations, not to tighten them,” said Komura. “We will never deny those who were previously accepted to Japan simply because of their lack of Japanese ability.”

Today’s announcement came as Japan’s population of 127.7 million is projected to drop 4 percent by 2020. Japan currently allows only skilled foreign workers and descendants of Japanese immigrants in Latin America to work in Japan as well as Asian trainees who often perform low-paid labor.

A study group of the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry, set up in January, recommended in an interim report released today that the government expand the maximum period of stay for foreigners with a basic level of Japanese-language proficiency. The Justice Ministry issues one-year and three-year visas, which can be extended.

The level of proficiency required to receive an extended visa won’t be high, according to a Foreign Ministry official who briefed reporters today on condition of anonymity. The details of the level of proficiency and how to measure ability have yet to be decided. The Justice Ministry may submit a bill to revise the immigration law in the parliament session that will start January 2009, he said.

The number of foreign residents in Japan has steadily increased to 2.1 million in December 2006, or 1.63 percent of the population, the latest available statistics, according to the Ministry of Justice Web site. In contrast, overseas-born residents comprise 12 percent of the population in the U.S.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aUKfPI1P0OAQ&refer=japan

Japanese firms stand to gain from tougher border controls in a post-9/11 world

In November, Japan became only the second country in the world (after the United States) to introduce mandatory fingerprinting and photo-taking at all international entry points, as part of beefed-up “antiterrorism” measures by the Ministry of Justice.

The move was greeted by howls of protest from human rights groups, lawyers and foreigners, who warned that it would help create the perception that “outsiders” disrupt domestic harmony and fuel crime. Many questioned the need for such elaborate security measures in a country where the chance of being attacked by a terrorist is about on a par with being struck by lightning.

“Why pick on us?” said one angry letter-writer to The Japan Times, calling the initiative “discriminatory” and “stupid.” Another critic was even harsher. “The motive of the new biometrics clearly is not stopping terrorism, but rather a new expression of Japan’s deep-seated racism and xenophobia,” wrote Donald M. Seekins.

Perhaps. As some pointed out, Japan’s minuscule terrorism problem is mostly homegrown. The country’s most lethal terrorist incident ? the Aum Shinrikyo gassing of Tokyo’s subway in 1995 ? was partly dreamt up by graduates of the country’s top universities. But there could be method in this apparently xenophobic madness, argues lawmaker Nobuto Hosaka of the Social Democratic Party.

“Business is behind this, no question,” he says. “There hasn’t been a terrorist incident in this country since Aum, so how else do we explain it?”

Hosaka has blogged extensively on biometrics ? technology that checks and stores information on unique individual characteristics such as irises, veins and voice to verify identity ? and is one of the few Diet politicians to publicly state that he finds its proliferation “alarming.”

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080415zg.html

Critics deride proposal to let Justice Ministry handle all data

Foreigners living in Japan should be allowed five-year visas but kept under the eye of a new unified Justice Ministry-run nationwide identification system, a government panel on immigration control said in its report released Wednesday.

The panel, made up of university professors and private-sector executives, said a new foreigner registration system and revision of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law should aim at creating “a symbiotic community” by providing a “pleasant environment for foreign residents in Japan.”

While the report emphasizes that the proposed measures will enable the government to provide better services for foreign residents, critics view the new registry system as increased state control.

Key pitches in the proposal include abolishing the current alien registration cards and replacing them with IDs issued by the Justice Ministry and creating a registry system of foreign residents on a household basis ? rather than an individual basis.

The report also proposes deregulation, including extending the renewal period for visas to a maximum of five years. Currently, visas must be renewed every one to three years.

“It remains unclear how the government will respond under the proposed system to each unique case of overstayers. Unified control by the Justice Ministry could result in aggressive deportations,” said Hiroo Osako, chief secretary of the nongovernmental group 119 Network for Foreigners.

The Saitama Prefecture-based activist said improving administrative support for foreigners can be achieved without revising current regulations. The proposed tighter controls, he warned, endanger privacy and basic human rights of foreign residents in Japan.

“For the government to think that strict control over foreigners will solve their issues is wrong,” Osako said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080327a1.html