POPULATION-JAPAN: Settling in a Struggle for Foreign Migrants

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, May 10 2001 (IPS) - Maria, the 31-year-old Filipino wife of a Japanese truck driver, says her husband’s country will be her home until she dies.

“At first it was difficult to think that way,” says the slight woman who spends most evenings teaching English to her neighbours’ kids. “But now Japan is definitely my home.”

Her husband Yasushi nods in agreement. “Maria is much better than a Japanese wife,” he laughs. “When Japanese women marry, they expect husbands to be the breadwinner. But Maria cooks, cleans, and also contributes to the home budget.”

Maria is one of many Filipinos who have found a second home in Japan, a country they first arrived in to work, and have adjusted to life here.

“They are not the majority but some women do find good marriages,” says Ken Suzuki of the Foreign Women’s Solidarity Association, Yokohama chapter.

The association supports women workers from places like the Philippines, South Korea and Latin America, who enter Japan seeking a slice of their host country’s economic success.

“Far-reaching changes can be observed in Japanese society that once prided itself as a homogenous country,” explains Suzuki. “Foreigners have made Japan more international.”

Japan is a magnet for migrants from countries like China, South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. Many Asian women end up in Japan’s huge entertainment industry, and other workers provide cheap labour for small and medium-sized firms.

Officially, there are more than 115,000 Filipinos here as migrant workers, although some estimates put the total number including those overstaying their visas, at 400,000.

Japan began getting more foreign workers in the late eighties, at the start of the ‘bubble economy’. Today, “there is no doubt that migrant labour is changing Japanese society,” Suzuki says.

Through the years, social trends arising from this phenomenon have emerged. The number of marriages between foreigners and Japanese is increasing, as well as children from those relationships.

According to Suzuki, one in every 26 foreign women workers helped by his organisation ends up with a Japanese spouse.

Many Filipino women meet their future husbands at their work places, including bars or snacks, because 90 percent of Filipino migrant workers in Japan are women in the entertainment industry,

According to the Justice Ministry, international marriages now make-up almost a third of marriages registered in Japan yearly.

In 1999, there were 31,900 international marriages, up from 27,727 in 1995. In that year, Japanese’ marriages with Chinese women topped the list at 7,810, followed by Filipinos at 6,414 and Korean women third.

But settling down in Japan is not all rosy. The lack of proper visas that women can have on their own, the difficulties children of mixed parentage have and communication barriers can make life for Asian women and their children miserable.

Some Filipinos say they are characterised as being “loose women” because they work in bars in Japan’s deeply-entrenched entertainment industry.

Even those like Maria have had their share of adjustment woes, including being scolded several times by her in-laws for speaking or laughing loudly.

As Japan’s foreign migrant population develops deeper roots, organisations like the Japan-Philippine Children’s Support Group are lobbying the government to accept migrants as part of society and update its laws and rules to reflect this.

“It is not important what nationality the person belongs to,” says a representative of the group who requested anonymity. “We want the Japanese government to accept the fact that migrant labour plays a very important role in supporting the Japanese economy, and is already part of the local society.”

The group, which supports children born to Filipino women abandoned by Japanese men, estimates that there are 6,000 relationships between Japanese and foreigners a year.

These relationships can lead to complicated situations if they end, especially if there are children.

Many Filipinos are saddled with visa problems as a result, especially if they have overstayed visas. A foreign wife who splits up with her partner cannot have her own visa without his sponsorship. This can make financial independence a problem.

Lenny Tolentino of the Solidarity Centre for Migrants in Yokohama says unmarried women with children with their Japanese partners cannot apply for proper visas to stay on and would not find it easy to land jobs or have access to social welfare.

Still, “the better conditions for migrant labour in Japan is also another reason why they decide to marry Japanese and stay,” says Suzuki.

Fortunately, activists say that mixed-blood children have access to local schools and kindergartens under Japan’s compulsory education laws that cover all children, with or without visas held by their mothers.

This came in handy for two Japanese Filipino children, who came with their mothers in February to look for their Japanese fathers. The children were granted one-year stays by the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau after coming in on tourist visas.

Still, Tolentino says, some undocumented children do not attend local schools because the mothers are afraid of being caught for staying without the right visas.

Some children are laughed at in school for not speaking Japanese well, or for having Filipino mothers who do not behave like other Japanese mothers.

The issue of children of Filipino women with Japanese fathers, called ‘Japinos’, has been festering for some time, not least because under Japan’s laws a child can be extended Japanese nationality if he recognises the child as his before its birth.

The government has yet to develop a clear policy on migrant labour and its social effects — some children of Japanese and foreign parents might get visas, others might not.

A study by Tokyo Women’s Medical College reports that one of 14 babies born in Tokyo’s 23 wards in 1999 had at least one non-Japanese parent. The same study shows that the percentage for the country as a whole rose to 2.8 percent, up 1.9 times from 1987.

By nationality, babies born of either South Korean or North Korean mothers numbered 6,991 followed by Filipinos with 6,024.

The study reveals that infant mortality rates among non- Japanese were higher than those for Japanese mothers because of difficulties such as inability to obtain adequate medical treatment and the language barrier, a factor in the birth and nurturing of babies.

All these data about foreign migrants show that they have become a vital part of the Japanese workforce and society, says Isami Ikeda, professor of international relations at Dokkyo University.

“The government may continue to deny them, but they are here to stay because Japan needs them,” he says.

Indeed, recent surveys show signs of change. More Japanese — 39 percent in 1999 compared to 56 percent in 1995 — now say foreign workers should be legally accepted.