J A P A N
Tougher Legal Weapons Needed against Trafficking
by Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO — New, special legal weapons and alternative protection measures are needed to combat gross human rights abuses against undocumented foreign women lured into Japan's sex industry, experts here say.
At a seminar here in late January, activists and legal experts highlighted the lack of an official safety net for migrant labour in Japan, effectively leaving tens of thousands of men and women without visas and thus the target of unscrupulous brokers and gangsters who employ them.
Despite criminal and labour laws, they say, the lack of a comprehensive anti-trafficking law in Japan has allowed criminal to only pay light fines when arrested.
"Japanese criminal law prohibits trafficking of persons from Japan to another country. But these provisions do not cover the other way around," says Yoko Yoshida, a lawyer with the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Kyoto.
Likewise, they said it is time for Japan, which has been a magnet for migrants for decades, to institute a proper system for the inflow of people from other countries. This means the issuance of legal visas and the provision of health and mental care for migrant labour.
Likewise, the current practice of deportation in Japan only places the blame on the victim rather than the perpetrator responsible for a foreign worker violation.
The Justice Ministry reports as of January 2002, there are around 224,067 overstayers in Japan, of which 105,945 are women. More than 46 percent of these women work as bar hostesses, followed by waitresses and factory workers.
By nationality, South Koreans comprise 25 percent of these overstayers, followed by the Philippines, and Thailand.
The last few years have seen an influx of young women from outside Asia — traditionally the biggest source of migrants — and coming from as far as Latin America and Eastern Europe and Russia.
Many are employed in red-light districts, as bars — also affected by the recession — are finding them increasingly cheaper to employ than Thais and Filipinos.
At the seminar by the Asia Foundation and the International Labour Organisation that ended Wednesday, migrant workers and activists working for their rights disclosed gross violations of their rights and industry in the adult entertainment industry, whose value has been estimated at almost 83 billion dollars a year.
They talk about regular beatings, exorbitant debt bondage of up to 6 million yen (50,000 U.S. dollars) that they are forced to pay back, 24-hour surveillance, and no salaries and having to service clients up to a maximum of 15 men each day.
"The situation needs urgent attention. New measures must reflect the reality of the situation, which is the growing demand for cheap foreign labour in Japan and the ready supply from Asia," points out Kasit Piromya, ambassador of Thailand in Japan.
The Thai Embassy in Tokyo reports that two to three Thai women seek refuge each week to escape cruel and degrading working conditions, bondage or forced sexual work.
Studies on Thai migrant labour presented here say that there is a highly systematic trafficking process that recruits both Thai and Japanese agents, some of them married couples, carried out by transnational criminal elements operating in various countries
Local agents supply girls from villages in poorer areas of Thailand, like the north and north-east, luring them with promises of high-income jobs in snack bars or restaurants in Japan. Once the women, most of them semi-literate agree, they are escorted to Japan through a third country.
Many trafficked women are given forged passports that have tourist visas. When they arrive in Japan, they are met by Japanese agents who whisk them away to rural brothels and snack bars.
Piromya explains the problem must be tackled from different fronts to deal with the exploitation process already in practice.
Among the proposals now being discussed are closer monitoring of Japanese-Thai couples applying for visas in Thailand, the setting up of a special desk at Bangkok airport to watch out for women who may be trafficked, and providing education and information on the legal implications of migration to raise awareness among the villages at risk.
The Thai ambassador said some have proposed that vocational training offered to trafficking victims in Japan, as a way to broaden employment opportunities whether in Japan itself or after they return to Thailand.
Often, Thai and other women migrant workers who escape are left with no money after their ordeal and cannot return to their families back home.
Social counsellors also called for psychological and spiritual support for trafficking victims to cope with their mental stress from abuse in Japan.
Kinsey Dinan, a policy analyst at National Centre for Children in Poverty,and former researcher for Human Rights Watch, says Japan can enact laws such as in Germany where pimps can be arrested and trafficking is seen as a serious criminal offence.
She says immigration laws in the United States guarantee assistance such as lawyers and compensation and medical care for victims while in custody and allows them to stay in the country during court proceedings.
Said Thai ambassador Kasit: "The basic reality is that human trafficking cannot be tackled piecemeal. It is the responsibility of all parties involved in the struggle to devote political will and financial resources support on its behalf."
