L A B O U R - J A P A N
Activists Assail Anti-Migrant Measures
by Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO — Japan has started to further tighten its immigration policies, a move that officials say is driven by security concerns but which activists assail as violating the human rights of non-Japanese.
A major bone of contention for human rights and labour activists helping foreign workers is a website launched by the Justice Ministry in February. Visitors to the site are asked to report on foreigners they suspect have overstayed their visas.
"We are not going to allow the government to get away with this. The web page clearly incites racial discrimination," said Sonoko Kawakami of Amnesty International Japan.
The controversial website was posted on Feb. 16 and is called 'Information Concerning Foreigners who are Overstaying, Etc'.
Visitors are not required to provide their identity but are encouraged to submit via Internet personal information on foreigners they suspect could be living in Japan without visas. Details sought include nationality, workplace, and home address.
The site describes undocumented foreigners as people who bother their neighbours or cause anxiety in others. As such, it contravenes the Justice Ministry's mandate of providing human rights protection, activists charged.
Kawakami said the website breached the U.N. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which Japan signed in 1995.
Activists have launched a petition against the site.
"We are determined to force the government to close this appalling abuse against foreigners. The website ignores the hard work of foreigners who are so important to the Japanese economy," said Miyoko Honda, spokesperson for the Labour Union for Migrant Workers, based in Tokyo and established two years ago.
The union was launched to help undocumented workers, mostly Asian and African, who arrive in Japan to work in jobs that are dangerous, dirty and so low paying that they are shunned by the Japanese.
It helps workers to force their Japanese employers to pay overdue salaries, compensation for injuries and better wages for shifts that stretch to more than 12 hours.
The Justice Ministry, citing security concerns following reports of vicious crime committed by foreigners last year, also has started stringent checks on overseas students and refugee applicants, and has presented proposed legislation that would impose harsher penalties on undocumented workers.
At present, foreigners found lacking valid visas are arrested, fined modest sums and deported immediately. The new measure would raise the ceiling for fines to 30,000 dollars and impose prison sentences of up to three years.
More than 70 percent of the 250,000 undocumented foreigners living in Japan enter on short-term visas, according to the government's immigration bureau.
An official who asked not to be named said the new website was routine and part of the computerisation of information on immigration. "We are not looking for tips on foreigners and will not use the information we get to immediately apprehend suspected residents," he said.
In 2002, 75,000 people sent tips by phone or email, he added.
Kawakami countered: "The immigration (bureau) is not even aware of how the website will fan anti-foreigner sentiment. It shows how little protection is afforded by authorities to foreigners in Japan."
Honda said official neglect forced the migrant workers' union to intervene in the case of a Bangladeshi man who was maimed for life after his boss accidentally drove a forklift into him, breaking the employee's spine. "We fought with his boss who first refused to even take him to hospital. In the end we won by getting the worker compensation for his injury," said Honda.
Jaffer Mohamed, a Sri Lankan factory worker in northern Tokyo, said he should be given a legal visa because "I work hard and pay my taxes."
Activists agreed. "Rather than set up discriminatory websites, the government should acknowledge the hard work of these undocumented workers and give them legal status," said Honda.
Surveys by her union showed that Asians are paid half the wages given their Japanese counterparts, live in appalling conditions, and suffer psychological stress doing blue-collar jobs in small and medium companies. (END/Copyright IPS)
