The Harsh Realities of Asylum Seeking in Japan
- lselwob
- Mar 2, 2020
- 8 min read
In 2017, Japan received 19,628 refugee applications but granted asylum to only 20 people [1]. While 45 people were permitted to stay under humanitarian status, it still left the total people given legal status that year at 65 [2]. Japan has consistently had the lowest acceptance rate of refugees out of the G7 countries, and it is a trend that appears to be continuing in 2020. This article will look at the current status of refugees in Japan, how the government deals with over-stayers, the reasons why acceptance rates are so low and the type of help that they can currently receive in Japan – from both the government and NGOs. In this article I hope to show a holistic look at this issue, and finally consider some possible options for how this situation can be improved.
DEFINITIONS
For this article, I will make a distinction between refugee and asylum seeker. A refugee is a person who has attained refugee status, while an asylum seeker is someone who has applied for refugee status and is awaiting his or her decision. A refugee is described by the 1951 UN Refugee Convention as ‘someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.’ [3]. In addition, an over-stayer is someone who has outstayed their visa and is thereby illegally residing in a country outside of their home country.
REFUGEE STATISTICS
In 2018, there were roughly 30,000 asylum seekers in Japan, and 7,500 accepted refugees. Of the 7,500 refugees, 4,000 are Indochina refugees Japan was forced to accept by the US following the Vietnam War in the 1980s. 2,588 have humanitarian status, meaning that they are legally able to stay in Japan but have less support from the government than those with refugee status. 152 are resettlement refugees, so they were accepted by the government as refugees from a third country’s refugee camp before they were brought to Japan. The final 708 people are Convention refugees, meaning that they gained refugee status through the refugee application process, as per the definition provided by the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. These numbers in themselves are already low, but when compared to other G7 countries such as the UK or France, they become abysmal. In 2018, the UK gave asylum to 12,027 people, which was a 32.5% acceptance rate. Comparatively, Japan accepted 42 people, making the acceptance rate 0.3%.
The application process itself seems purposefully difficult, with many instances of bureaucratic red tape. The responsibilities that asylum seekers have, such as continuously going to the Immigration Centre to renew their visas, not working without a work permit and attending multiple interviews, all in a completely new country are arguably unfair. Each rule and procedure, if not accomplished or followed correctly, can have a direct and dire effect on people’s asylum application as well as their legal status in the country. Arguably, it is almost as if the government is waiting for them to fail. In addition, while visas are typically given by the government to first-time applicants, if the application is rejected and a person chooses to reapply, then their visa will not be extended, and they run a risk of being put into a detention centre for over-staying their visa.
In addition, during this process, the government provides very limited support. The extra-governmental organisation Refugee Headquarters (RHQ) is able to provide shelter and a daily allowance [4]. However, there is an application process which takes roughly a week and a half, the funding and support is given for four months at a time, and it is only available to first-time applicants. What this means is that many people, in the best of circumstances, do not have shelter for the first 6 weeks. Some people are rejected on their application, and submit another one, meaning that they have to survive in a new country where they have no contacts and are not allowed to work, for 3 months without any kind of support from the government. In addition, applications are reassessed every 4 months, and support can either be provided for another 4 months, or the applications terminated without any explanation. Finally, as it is open to only first-time applicants, those who re-apply are then ultimately provided no support by the government.
DETENTION CENTRES
If visas get cancelled, if their terms and conditions are violated, or if people become over-stayers, asylum seekers will be told to return to their home countries and if they refuse, they are placed in detention centres. Recently, conditions in detention centres have deteriorated and there have been increasingly longer detention periods as well. In 2018, while the number of detainees dropped from 1,351 to 1,246, the number of detainees that had been in detention for 6 months or longer rose from 576 people to 681 people [5]. That is almost half of the people in the detention centres. This troubling trend of harsher treatment has led to a few instances of hunger strikes in detention centres in Japan, including one in 2018 over the death of an inmate [6]. Though the death of a detainee led to the releases of some asylum seekers, it did not trigger a long-term solution. In fact, those who are released from detention centres can be put back in them whenever the government decides, without any actual cause or reason. The media coverage over these incidents is also relatively minimal, especially in Japan, meaning that it didn’t have a large impact on the public and detention policy.
HOW THEY ARE ABLE TO ACCEPT SO FEW REFUGEES
As Japan was a part of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, it is honour-bound to provide asylum to those who fulfil the criteria for a refugee. However, the vague nature of the document and the definition provided means that governments have the liberty to choose how to interpret it [7]. The Japanese government chooses to interpret it as narrowly as possible, which is accomplished in a few ways. There is a great emphasis on evidence, the burden of which is on refugees. This is problematic in two ways: (a) many asylum seekers are not in a position to bring evidence as to why they are in danger as they flee danger; (b) all of the evidence needs to be translated into Japanese before being submitted to immigration. Immigration further question the legitimacy of the danger that asylum seekers face. This essentially means that unless one can prove they are well known, or are being targeted specifically, they are unlikely to be able to gain asylum in Japan. It is a criterion that seems to deliberately ignore the plights of people who are victims of genocide or are targeted for their membership of a threatened group. Another question that is often asked is if people were able to get a passport or a plane ticket. The point of this is, that in the case where the government is being accused of acting as an oppressor, to suggest that if people are able to get a passport or board a plane, then surely their governments do not actually care about the asylum seeker, as they are not actively being trapped in the country [8]. I submit that such factors should not determine the credibility of an asylum seeker’s explanation or story.
Moreover, the government may refuse to accept asylum applications from people with particular passports. Occasionally, people will also be asked to sign a paper at the airports before entering Japan stating that they understand their country of origin is ‘safe to return to’. Asylum seekers will not be allowed to enter Japan without signing it. This then has a negative effect on asylum applications and can be used as a reason by immigration to refuse an application. Finally, it is believed that people who try and claim asylum at the airport are occasionally sent back to their country of origin straight from the airport, without having actually set foot in Japan. All of these tactics go against the 1951 UN Refugee Convention both in actuality and in spirit and are truly heinous acts against the most vulnerable people.
REASONS FOR LOW ACCEPTANCE RATES
There are many reasons as to why the acceptance rates are so incredibly low in Japan, with some being more legitimate than others. The main justification that is often used by the government, and the UNHCR in Japan, is that the country provides a lot of financial aid to the UNCHR, and thereby to refugees in other countries. To an extent, this is a credible excuse. Japan is the 5th largest UNCHR donor and that financial support is greatly beneficial to many countries that accept and house a lot of refugees, but that are not necessarily equipped to handle such numbers. In 2019, Japan contributed US$72.5 million, which then went to help operations in Africa, the Middle East, Ukraine, and Asia [9]. The primary reason as to why Japan does this is because the government does not want to accept a lot of refugees into the country. There are claims of Japan not being well equipped to deal with a large influx of people, especially in such a homogenous society, and Japan’s economic status is also used as a way to show how the county would suffer if more were accepted.
However, the biggest issue with this approach is that it ignores the people who are already in Japan and wanting to seek asylum. While Japan does donate a lot of money to help refugees (albeit in other countries), in any instance, it cannot evade responsibility for the asylum seekers in its own country. In addition, the fact that Japan accepts an incredibly small number of refugees each year, especially in comparison to the other G7 countries, calls to question exactly how negatively Japan would be affected by doubling, tripling or even quintupling the number of people they accept each year.
WHAT JAPAN CAN DO BETTER
Currently, much of the refugee support in Japan is being done by NGOs, charities and religious organisations. Even the ‘UN Information for Asylum-Seekers in Japan’ [10] booklet refers to non-governmental organisations as places for asylum seekers to get support and information. Most support with regard to shelter, food, legal advice and representation, job support, medical services and translation comes from NGOs and religious organisations rather than the government [11, 12]. However, the organisations themselves are stretched thin as they try and provide for hundreds of people, meaning that many people are left without any support at all. NGOs and religious organisations will never have the type of funding or power that governments do, and the reliance on them to essentially do what the government needs to be doing is unfair and impractical. Without the government providing the basic level of care such as food, shelter and medical help, NGOs are unable to do things like support mental health needs or language education, given that they are fighting for others’ bare survival, first and foremost.
A piece by Julia Hodes.
NOTES
[1] <Number of applicants recognised as refugees in 2017>
[2] ibid.
[3] United Nations, “Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees” (UNHCR) accessed February 4, 2020.
[4] (REFUGEE ASSISTANCE HEADQUARTERS) accessed February 4, 2020.
[5] “Re-Detention of Asylum Seekers in Japan, Hunger Strikes Show Strained Immigration System” (The Mainichi September 2, 2019) accessed February 4, 2020.
[6] “Japan Detention Centre Immigrants Start Hunger Strike” (BBC News April 17, 2018) accessed February 4, 2020.
[7] United Nations, “Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees” (UNHCR) accessed February 4, 2020.
[8] United Nations, “An Overview of Protection Issues in Europe: Legislative Trends and Positions Taken by UNHCR, European Series, Vol.1, No.3” (UNHCR) accessed February 4, 2020.
[10] “Information for Asylum-Seekers in Japan
[11] “Refugee Support” (Japan Evangelical Lutheran Association JELA) accessed February 4, 2020.
[12] Japan Association, “難民支援協会 / Japan Association for Refugees” (日本のな かでの難民支援 − 認定 NPO 法人 難民支援協会) accessed February 4, 2020.
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