llegal residents should not be held in detention for more than one year because any longer causes too much stress, a former chief of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau said, noting extended incarceration led to two hunger strikes at detention centers this year, one of which followed suicides.
“One year of confinement is mentally tough,” Hidenori Sakanaka, now director general of the independent think tank Japan Immigration Policy Institute, said in a recent interview with The Japan Times. “If that becomes a rule, bureau officials will try really hard to investigate thoroughly whether detainees warrant deportation or temporary release. They will work efficiently.”
He said he was unsure if applying a one-year rule would lead to an increase in detainees being granted temporary release or would trigger a rise in deportations, but added, “the Immigration Bureau must stop suicides and hunger strikes.”
There is no limit on how long the government can hold foreign residents deemed to be in Japan illegally. The Immigration Bureau’s Enforcement Division said 71 inmates out of 442 being held in three detention centers in Ibaraki, Osaka and Nagasaki prefectures had been confined for more than a year as of May 31.
Dozens of detainees went on hunger strikes lasting more than a week at the East Japan Immigration Control Center in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, in May and at the West Japan Immigration Control Center in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, in March. They were demanding better treatment, including limiting their incarceration to six months.
The Ushiku inmates also demanded lowered bail for temporary release. A support group for people applying for refugee status said bail typically ranges between ¥500,000 and ¥800,000, but can be less than ¥200,000.
The immigration law stipulates bail must not exceed ¥3 million.
The hunger strikes failed to win any concessions.
The Ushiku center didn’t make any promises, said Mitsuru Miyasako of the inmate support group Bond.
The hunger strike followed two inmate suicides at the center. A Brazilian man hanged himself in February and a South Korean did likewise in April. The Brazilian had been confined three months and the South Korean six months, their supporters said.
“We will try to gauge the detainees’ mental health” to prevent suicides, said Tetsuro Isobe of the Immigration Bureau’s Enforcement Division. Plastic bags, which were used in both suicides, will also be banned, he said.
“We will also be flexible in handling the situation and try to reduce the duration of detention and the amount of bail,” he said. “Hunger strikes disturb the bureau’s operations and thus are inappropriate for making demands.”
On holding people younger than age 18, Isobe said the Immigration Bureau tries its best to find appropriate guardians for minors who are deportation candidates. If it can’t find them, detention is the only option, he added.
In addition to the three centers for long-term confinement, the Immigration Bureau has short-term cells in 16 regional bureaus where officers investigate to determine if illegal residents should be deported or released. Deportation candidates are moved to one of the three detention centers.
If those in the centers refuse to be deported or their countries of origins decline to accept them, confinement typically drags on, Sakanaka said. Iran tends to refuse deportees, including drug dealers and others convicted of other crimes in addition to overstaying their visas, he said.
Some detainees, including refugee applicants, petition for special permission to stay and await court decisions, becoming longtime detainees in the process, he said.
Another problem is that detention centers can’t release longtime inmates because the Immigration Bureau can’t keep track of them if they don’t have guarantors or people for emergency contact, Sakanaka said.
He said detention centers and the Immigration Bureau must give an explanation to the public about the suicides, hunger strikes and the treatment of detainees, and also explain how a Ghanaian man who was overpowered by immigration officers while being placed on a jetliner for deportation from Narita airport in March died on the plane in handcuffs.
Sakanaka, who headed the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau from April 2002 to March 2005, said he worked hard to disclose how detainees were treated and allowed them to make phone calls freely during the day. Other regional bureaus and detention centers followed suit after him, he said.
When the bureau integrated operations in Jujo and Otemachi, Tokyo, into the new building in Shinagawa in February 2003, it was a chance for him to overhaul operations, he said.
In addition to allowing phone calls, he abolished the practice of having a bureau officer present when a detainee has a visitor.
The eased arrangement allowed inmates to feel safe telling people outside the bureau the truth about their treatment and other things, and the bureau saves on manpower. He also stopped bureau officers from looking at letters addressed to detainees.
“I thought making immigration offices open will make them better,” he said. “Hunger strikes would not have been public information if inmates had not been allowed to make phone calls. The incidents give the Immigration Bureau a chance to improve itself.”
Foreigners’ voting rights
In their election manifestoes, New Komeito, the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party pledge to achieve foreign suffrage. Other parties, like the Liberal Democratic Party, the People’s New Party, the Sunrise Party of Japan and Your Party, are opposed to the change.
In contrast, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan’s manifesto says nothing about the issue. When the DPJ was formed, its party platform said foreign suffrage should be “realized quickly.” After gaining power, then Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and then Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa were eager to make this happen.
But the DPJ’s coalition partner, the People’s New Party, and some local assemblies reject the idea. Even some DPJ members are against the move.
More than 2.2 million foreign residents are registered in Japan, and 910,000 of them have been granted permanent resident status. Japan is already a country comprising people with various backgrounds. It is appropriate to have those people rooted in their local communities to share the responsibility in solving problems and developing their communities.
It is also appropriate to allow their participation in local elections as residents, while respecting their bonds to their home nations.
In its new strategy for economic growth, the government says it will consider a framework for taking in foreigners to supplement the work force. To become an open country, Japan must create an environment that foreigners find easy to live in.
An Asahi Shimbun survey in late April and May showed that 49 percent of the respondents were in favor of foreign suffrage while 43 percent were against it.
Since public opinion is divided, the DPJ, which put the issue on the public agenda, should not waffle but should give steady and persuasive arguments to the public.
The LDP is raising the tone of its criticism, saying foreigners’ voting rights, along with the dual surname system for married couples, is a policy that will “destroy the framework of this country.” The party apparently wants to make the voting rights issue a major conflicting point between conservatives and liberals.
Some opponents express concerns about the negative effects on national security. However, this kind of argument can nurture anti-foreign bigotry and ostracism. It sounds like nothing more than an inward-looking call for self-preservation.
Some say foreigner suffrage goes “against the Constitution.” However, it is only natural to construe from the Supreme Court ruling of February 1995 that the Constitution neither guarantees nor prohibits foreigner suffrage but rather “allows” it.
The decision on foreign suffrage depends on legislative policy.
In an age when people easily cross national borders, what kind of society does Japan wish to become? How do we determine the qualifications and rights of people who comprise our country and communities? To what extent do we want to open our gates to immigrants? How do we control social diversity and turn it into energy?
Politicians need to discuss the suffrage issue based on their answers to these questions. The issue of foreign residents’ voting rights is a prelude to something bigger.
Department stores and sweat shops
It’s one Japan for rich Chinese shoppers, another for low-skilled workers
Many Japanese strive to keep up egalitarian appearances. Porsche drivers keep their cars tactfully hidden away. Houses of the well-heeled are unflashy. In the finest department stores, even the demure “elevator girls” are treated with impeccable politeness.
But when it comes to the way Japan treats its nouveau riche neighbour, China, different rules apply. Two events this month betray the double standards with which Japanese officialdom treats China’s rich and poor. On July 1st Japan relaxed visa requirements for well-off Chinese tourists. It was not stated how much anyone needed to earn to apply for one. But as long as they had at least a gold credit card and a solid professional or civil-service job to go back to, they were free to come to Japan, to shop until they dropped.
Far from the bright lights of Japan’s shopping districts, however, young Chinese working in small industrial firms get anything but red-carpet treatment. On July 5th Kyodo, a news agency, reported that 21 Chinese were among 27 foreign trainees who died last year on a government-sponsored skills-transfer scheme for developing countries that over the past four years has brought in an average of 94,000 workers a year, mostly from China.
Of the 27, nine died of heart or brain diseases, four died while working and three committed suicide. A few days earlier officials confirmed that a 31-year-old Chinese trainee who died in 2008 after clocking up about 100 hours a month of overtime was the victim not of heart failure, as originally reported, but of “karoshi”, the Japanese affliction of death from overwork.
Japan International Training Co-operation Organisation, the outfit set up by five government ministries to oversee the skills-transfer programme, refuses to discuss the deaths. But Lila Abiko, of the Lawyers’ Network for Foreign Trainees, an NGO, says many guest-workers do so much low-paid overtime—with the support of their employers—that they literally work themselves to death. The mortality rate from heart disease and other stress-related ailments among trainees in their 20s and 30s is almost double that of Japanese of the same age, she says. “Japan is the richest country in Asia, yet this programme is exploiting poor Chinese like slaves.”
Japan’s shrinking population is at the root of both phenomena. As domestic spending declines, Japan needs wealthy Chinese tourists to help prop up the local economy, and low-skilled Chinese trainees to help man its factories. Figures for both have climbed .
The worse the demographics become, the more useful it may be for Japan to have China on its doorstep. But for the moment, the best many Chinese can say about Japan is that they love its products. That is not the basis for an enduring affinity.
33 foreign care workers go home; test too difficult
Thirty-three Filipinos and Indonesians who came to Japan to work as nurses and nursing care workers have returned home after becoming discouraged by their slim prospects of passing the national exams for their professions, it has been learned.
Eleven went home after learning they had failed the latest annual nursing exam. Only 1.2 percent of foreign applicants have passed the exam.
More would-be nurses and care workers could decide to return home after becoming discouraged by the language barrier in the exams, according to observers.
The government plans to review the exams’ format, including the language and terminology used.
Since fiscal 2008, 998 nurses and care workers have arrived in Japan under bilateral economic partnership agreements with the Philippines and Indonesia.
No foreign applicant passed last year’s exams, as they apparently had difficulty understanding kanji and technical terms written in Japanese. This year, only three passed the nursing exam.
The 33 trainees who returned home were among the 880 who arrived in fiscal 2008 and 2009. They comprised 15 Indonesians, including 12 nurses, and 18 Filipinos, including 11 nurses.
According to the Japanese International Corporation of Welfare Service, which oversees the program, 118 nurses and care-givers arrived this fiscal year.
Under the bilateral agreements, the nurses are given help learning Japanese and preparing for the exams while working at hospitals and care facilities in the nation.
Applicants can take the exam when they are deemed to have professional skills and knowledge equal to those of graduates of Japanese nursing schools or university nursing science departments.
These foreigners can work in Japan as certified nurses or care workers only if they pass the exams within three or four years of arriving here, respectively. They can only work in limited trainee nurse roles until they pass the exam: If they fail to pass the exam before the three- or four-year term expires, they must return home.
An expert panel of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry this month discussed measures to alleviate the problem, such as using simpler alternatives to difficult technical terms in the nursing exams.
The panel will draw up proposals as soon as next month.
Labor standards office to rule Chinese trainee at metal plant died of overwork
A local labor standards inspection office [in Ibaraki Prefecture] is set to recognize the death of a Chinese trainee at a metal processing factory was caused by overwork, officials said.
This will be the first time that the death of a foreign vocational trainee in Japan has been recognized as a work-related accident, according to a liaison council of attorneys working on issues related to foreign trainees.
Jiang Xiaodong died of heart failure at the company residence of Fuji Denka Kogyo in Itako, Ibaraki Prefecture, in June 2008 while employed at its factory under a government-backed training program. His bereaved family filed a petition with the Kashima Labor Standards Inspection Office in August last year for compensation for a work-related accident.
The labor office has confirmed that Jiang worked up to 98 hours of overtime a month between March and May 2008. Moreover, the office has found that the company forged his payroll book based on a false time-clock card, destroyed relevant documents and failed to pay him some overtime wages.
The office then concluded that Jiang died from overwork resulting from working excessively long hours in violation of the Labor Standards Law. It has also sent an investigation document on the company’s 66-year-old president to prosecutors, accusing him of violating the Labor Standards Law.
The president denied that the victim’s death was a result of overwork. “He underwent a health check in April 2008, and we paid due attention to his health. We had him work overtime on his request. We don’t think his death was a work-related accident.”
Shoichi Ibusuki, an attorney for the bereaved family [and special guest at Tozen’s 2010 Convention], emphasized how common such cases may be, saying, “It’s difficult to file a petition for compensation for a foreign trainee’s death as a result of a work-related accident because we can’t easily contact bereaved families. The latest case is the tip of the iceberg.”
Approximately 87,000 foreign nationals have undergone vocational training in Japan under the government-backed program, some 65,700 of whom are Chinese.
Until the revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law came into force this month, trainees had not been recognized as workers — to whom the Labor Standards Law applies — during the first year of their training. Therefore, they were forced to work for extremely long hours at unreasonably low wages.
In fiscal 2008, a record 34 foreign vocational trainees died while they were in Japan, according to the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization. Of them, 16 died of brain or heart ailments allegedly caused by working too long — 2.5 times more than a year earlier.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100703p2a00m0na014000c.html
Chinese intern death in Japan ‘very likely’ due to overwork
A Chinese intern employed in Japan under a government training program “very likely” died because he had been overworked, labour officials said Friday.
The 31-year-old man worked at a metal processing firm in Ibaraki prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, and died of cardiac arrest in June 2008 after working more than 100 hours overtime the month before.
The government program has long been criticized for the ease with which it can be used for labour exploitation, and lawyers said it was the first such death to be recognized as a result of overwork, but likely only the tip of the iceberg.
Japan has strict immigration rules, but some companies, especially in manufacturing, have used a loophole to bring in low-wage foreign workers on “training” schemes under the foreign assistance program.
Amid rising concern over abuses under the scheme, a government body announced last year that a record 34 workers from Asia, mainly Chinese nationals, had died in Japan in the year to March 2009 alone.
“This is a case very likely to be recognized as ‘karoshi’ (overwork death),” said a spokesman for the area labour office, adding the case was filed with prosecutors against the company Fuji Denka Kogyo and his 66-year-old boss.
Last year the Japan International Training Co-operation Organization, which oversees the nation’s training programs, said of the 34 deaths in the year to March 2009 that 16 died of heart and brain ailments, five died in workplace accidents and one committed suicide.
Some 190,000 foreigners — mainly from China, Indonesia and the Philippines — are currently believed to be in Japan on government training programs.
Lawyer Shoichi Ibusuki, a member of a legal group that has represented trainee workers in cases of alleged abuse [and special guest at Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union‘s 2010 Convention], said that the foreign trainees are being exploited by Japanese companies.
Many of the trainees work on assembly lines, mainly in the textiles, food processing and machinery sectors.
Japan has one of the world’s lowest birth rates, but it has so far rejected allowing large-scale immigration of unskilled workers.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Chinese+intern+death+Japan+very+likely+overwork/3227865/story.html
Foreigner suffrage, separate surnames stir passions in poll runup
Whether to grant permanent foreign residents voting rights for local-level elections and allow married couples to keep their respective surnames have become contentious issues ahead of the July 11 Upper House election.
The ruling Democratic Party of Japan, which advocates the introduction of foreigner suffrage and separate surnames for married couples if desired, faces strong opposition from conservatives in the Liberal Democratic Party and small parties, including its own ruling bloc partner.
Aichi Prefecture voters, however, are puzzled by the conservatives’ fervor because the topics have yet to stir national debate.
“If we give foreigners the right to vote (in a disorderly manner), it would threaten Japanese tradition and national security,” said Hiroyasu Inoue, 62, of the city of Kariya.
A citizens group led by Inoue has called on assemblies to oppose foreigner voting rights. In response, more than 20 have approved written opinions or adopted statements either to object to such suffrage or to take a cautious approach. “We are closely monitoring each candidate’s opinion, regardless of the parties,” said Inoue.
The LDP and small conservative parties set out to oppose the ideas in their platforms, vying with the DPJ, which has liberal views on these issues. Some homemakers, who used to be the last to become involved in politics, now speak to people at the weekly rally of Inoue’s group held at Kanayama Station in Nagoya.
“The pride of this country that has been built up by the Yamato (Japanese) race must be passed down to our children, otherwise there will be no future for the country,” said Masahito Fujikawa, 49, an LDP-backed candidate [and apparent xenophobe] in the Aichi electoral district.
Fujikawa, 49, also spoke to an audience of about 200 at a rally staged by a women’s group in front of JR Nagoya Station in early June, drawing applause. Members of the group handed out leaflets to passersby while holding banners to protest granting suffrage to foreigners and allowing separate surnames for married couples.
Aiming to appeal to conservative ranks, small parties, including Kokumin Shinto (People’s New Party), which is still in a coalition with the DPJ, and Tachiagare Nippon (Sunrise Party of Japan), whose members bolted from the LDP and fear being overshadowed by the LDP and DPJ, are clearly demonstrating their conservative stance in the runup to the election.
Candidates from the major parties in the Aichi district, other than Fujikawa of the LDP, who are clearly against giving foreigners voting rights include Michiyo Yakushiji, 46, of Your Party.
Nobuko Motomura, 37, of the Japanese Communist Party, and Mitsuko Aoyama, 62, of the Social Democratic Party, meanwhile support foreigner suffrage because foreign residents pay taxes and are part of their communities.
The two DPJ candidates differ in opinion. “One option is to open the door for foreigners after having enough discussions,” said Yoshitaka Saito, 47, who is supportive, while Misako Yasui, 44, is against the measure.
Meanwhile, foreign residents expressed concerns in a divisive debate on foreigner suffrage. “Brazilian residents are not as interested in the voting rights as Japanese people see it as a problem,” said Hideo Alcides Tanaka, 49, of the Brazilian Association of the city of Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture. He is concerned the debate over suffrage could become a political focal point that triggers a move to exclude foreigners from society.
“This is the issue of Japanese democracy and how Japanese think of living together with Korean descendants in Japan despite the history (of Japanese oppression). It is for the Japanese to decide how to handle the issues,” said Do Sang Tae, a Korean descendant and chairman of a nonprofit organization in Toyohashi.
Health Checks – They’re mandatory! Interac ordered to obey the law
Cross-posted from the General Union in Osaka:
5 Jul 2010
Health Checks – They’re mandatory!
Interac ordered to obey the law
Industrial Health & Safety Act
For many westerners, the idea of a state mandated health check smacks of a nanny state, and we are often reluctant to submit to the tests. While not all companies obey this law, the fact remains it is compulsory for all employees to have an annual health check under article 66 of the act.
Foreign talent feeling gypped by top agency
Inagawa Motoko Office, one of the largest and oldest show business agencies catering to foreign performers in Japan, recently came under fire from some of its registered artists for not paying them in a timely manner for work they have done.
In recent interviews with The Japan Times, 10 people registered with IMO said those who do not ask the agency for money multiple times have no chance of getting paid, and there are many foreigners who have gone home unpaid.
All of the 10, five of whom asked not to be named because they don’t want to upset the agency, said they are registered with several other agencies but have no similar problems with them.
IMO is not violating any written contracts because the people it uses do not sign one that stipulates the timing of payment before each job, which range from ¥10,000 to ¥50,000 for a few hours of work or a full day.
Industry experts say there may be other agencies with similar delinquent payment practices, because many agencies are not well known. But the normal practice is to tell artists what they will earn in advance and to pay wages on time.
Louis Carlet of Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union recommended that foreign artists unionize.
“If they unionize, they have collective bargaining power. They will have more strength,” he said, adding that even one person can join his union.
Opening Japan’s Immigration Door
Buried in the government’s new growth strategy is a short section calling for an easing — albeit slight — in Japan’s ultra-tight immigration restrictions. It’s a small gesture, but symbolically significant for a nation that has been slow to open its borders, despite a shrinking native population.
The Kan administration hopes to “double the number of highly skilled foreign personnel” over the next decade, said the report issued Friday. That’s up from about 200,000 now.
An accompanying Justice Ministry report suggests specific policy changes to reach that goal, such as allowing those people to stay in Japan on special visas for five years — up from the current three — and to make it easier for them gain permanent residency status.
The goal, according to the Justice report is to “show the world what sort of highly skilled talent the country hopes to strategically invite.” Such an influx, it added, could: “increase productivity of industry, stimulate the labor market, and consequently, create new energy in the social economy and strengthen international competitiveness.”
Japan is one of the least immigrant-friendly developed countries in the world. In 2006, just 1.1% of Japan’s workforce (about 753,000) was made up of immigrants, highly skilled or otherwise, compared with 8.5% for Germany and 15.6% for the U.S.
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2010/06/23/opening-japans-immigration-door/