RIGHTS-JAPAN: Many half-Japanese Children Suffer in Legal Limbo

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Oct 2 1999 (IPS) - The Japanese government has yet to make an official head count of them and recognise them as citizens. But children born out of wedlock to Japanese fathers and foreign mothers have as much rights as others born to Japanese couples, argue activists here.

Indeed, while a few of these children have been enjoying court victories of late against fathers who refuse to support them, activists say they should not have even have to resort to courts in the first place just to get what is really due them.

Activists have thus been hard at work with legal experts to persuade the government to help these essentially stateless children, many of whom have Filipino women as mothers.

A non-government organisation (NGO) that was set up in 1996 specifically to help ‘Japinos’ — as children of Japanese men and Filipino women are called in the Philippines — says that it now has some 300 children under its care.

So far, however, there has been little response from Tokyo. According to Rieko Ito of the Japan-based Citizen’s Network for Japanese Filipino Children (JFC), there is no official figure or data regarding these children because Tokyo treats the issue not as a social one, but as the result of personal liaisons between two adults.

“Despite intensive lobbying for more help from officials, (it has) offered nothing,” adds Ito. “The Japanese government is denying its responsibilities.”

“There is no excuse for the government,” she says. “An increasing number of these children, whether they live in the Philippines or in Japan, is an issue that must be recognised.”

Japan’s economic expansion into Asia in the 1980s apparently encouraged many Japanese men to seek sexual companionship with South-east Asian women. At the same time, economic difficulties in countries like the Philippines have forced women to seek work overseas, with a quite number ending up in Japan.

About 40,000 Filipino women work as entertainers in Japan these days, some of them being forced into prostitution. Many also wind up having Japanese boyfriends, with whom they later have children.

But unless the parents marry and have the marriage registered in Japan, these children will not have the same privileges as the offspring of Japanese couples.

Japanese men who choose not to marry their foreign lovers may also opt to recognise their children legally before birth for them to be Japanese nationals.

“Domestic laws are such that a father’s recognition is important to gain medical support or to be able to send children to public schools,” says lawyer Ryusuke Kin, who belongs to a legal assistance group that handles Japino cases, explaining the benefits of legal recognition by the Japanese father.

Too often, though, many of the Japanese men who have sexual relations with foreign women refuse to recognise the children born of these relationships, partly because they happen to be married and are not about to risk divorce.

“In addition,” says Kin, “if (the man) remarries a foreign hostess, then he faces a serious situation in Japanese society that will look down upon him.”

The children, however, suffer more as a result of their fathers’ callousness. The mother of two-year-old Masami, for example, had to go to court to force the child’s Japanese father to give monthly support.

Masami, whose mother Rosanna Tapiru is a Filipina, suffers from Kawasaki disease, a disorder of the coronary arteries that leads to high fever and rashes. Her medical check-ups cost more than 10,000 yen (100 dollars) per visit. But because she is not a Japanese national, the little girl is not covered by the state health insurance.

Her mother Tapiru, who also suffers from a thyroid problem, does not have a valid visa and has been barely able to make ends meet with part-time jobs.

Tapiru had worked as a hostess in a bar here, where she met Masami’s father, a married man. She says the Japanese man promised that he would divorce his wife and then marry her. That never happened, of course.

Tapiru says her lover had forced her to have an abortion. But when she became pregnant with Masami, she fought to keep the child despite the father’s fierce objections.

Last July, the court ordered Masami’s father to pay 50,000 yen (500 dollars) in monthly child support for the next 18 years. Tapiru says Masami’s father had offered three million yen (30,000 dollars) in exchange for her to leave Japan. But the 35-year-old is staying put, and will press for Masami’s father to recognise the child.

“I want Masami’s father to fulfill his duty,” she says. “It is not the money but the issue of protecting the rights of my child.”

In the face of the increasing number of Japanese men who refuse to own up to their being fathers of children of their foreign lovers, the JFC has recently begun offering DNA testing. Says Ito: “Japanese men dodge their responsibilities by saying the children are not their own. With DNA testing, they have to face (what they have done).”

She reiterates that the government should step in as well, arguing that at the very least, it was the Justice Ministry that had issued the visas to the women who eventually became the lovers of Japanese men, and then the mothers of their children. Other activists also note that many of the women are often poor and are therefore unable to support the children adequately on their own.

Despite their efforts, activists and lawyers admit that the process of getting support for children like Masami is long-drawn and often does not result in success. In truth, even with their court victory, Masami and her mother are now trying to find a new place to live. Masami’s father has thrown her and Tapiru out of the apartment that he owns.

Activists say, though, that they will not give up if only because the children themselves often yearn to see their Japanese fathers. Says Ito:”Children are blameless and have a right to their fathers.”