DECREASE IN HUMAN RIGHTS SUPPORT FOR FOREIGNERS IN JAPAN
By Olaf Karthaus, April 14, 2003
Freely forwardable
On April 12, the Japanese government published a report on human rights of
foreigners in Japan.
The scanned report (10 pages) can be seen at
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3000 Japanese citizens were asked if they think that foreigners should enjoy
protection of human rights to the extend of Japanese.
In the following I will give my analysis of part of the data. The poll is
a whole bonanza of information.
Overall 54% said that foreigners should have the same protection of human
rights as Japanese (nihon kokuseki wo motanai hito demo, nihonjin to onaji
you ni jinken ha mamorubeki da). This is a steady decline from 68.3% 10 years
ago, and 65.5% 5 years ago.
On the reason it can only be speculated, but newspaper articles quote from
the Justice Ministry that maybe the sudden rise in crime by foreigners may
have affected the outcome of the poll.
In the same period, the percentage of people who answered that it canŐt be
helped that foreigners have not the same rights (nihon kokuseki wo motanai
hito ha nihonjin to onaji you na kenri wo motte inakutemo shikatta ga nai)
first fell from 20.4 to 18.5% and then rose to 21.8%, and thus is more or
less unchanged.
Interestingly, the percentage of people answering "I don't know" or "neither
of both" more than doubled from 11.2% to 24.3%.
Japanese people do not know what they should make of the "problem" of human
rights. This is due to the lack of decisive political action to clearly establish
that human rights have to be protected, no matter for which nationality.
The lack of clear legislation and court decisions create a vacuum which leaves
lots of space for ambiguity.
There is also a clear trend concerning the age, education level and living
conditions of the polled persons. The older the person, the less supportive
he/she is for protection of foreigners (more than 64% in the 20-39 age bracket,
but only 39.4% in the above 70 years bracket. 64% among people who live in
a megapolis but only 47% who live in rural areas. More than 64% among students
and office clerks, but an alarming low number of 19.4% among farmers and
fishermen in family businesses)
Very interesting differences also exist if the polled person knows about
basic human rights.
57.6% of the people who knew basics about human rights (kihonteki jinken
ni tsuite no shuuchido shitteiru) support same human rights for foreigners,
and only 19.7% said "shikata ga nai".
This clearly shows that the better the general education and the knowledge
of the basics of human rights is, the higher is the acceptance that foreigners
should enjoy the same protection as Japanese.
CONCLUSION
It seems that the lack of proper information of the Japanese people is one
of the reasons why the support for the protection of foreigners in Japan
is dwindeling.
Moreover, the most unsupportive people are those, who barely have any contact
with foreigners (rural people in farming and fishing business). This also
proves the lack of information on the issue. Lack of information is by the
way the best breeding ground to built up prejudice.
If the Japanese government, especially the Human Rights Bureau of the Justice
Department (Jinken yougobu) would intensify their efforts in educating the
unknowing, the result of the polls would be better. The poll itself gives
enough suggestions how to increase awareness: via internet (71.7%), in workshops
(69.3%), in meetings with the elderly (64.9%), and so on. It has to be noticed
that the favorite way of educating people of the Human Rights Bureau is to
issue posters, but this way of advertising human rights was ranked second
to last (only 57.3% thought this would be effective) among the polled people.
Furthermore would the society profit from a clear-cut legislation on the
issue. Away from the present ambiguity to a clear framework of the dos and
donŐts of human rights in Japan
Here is the final and even more basic question: why is such a poll necessary
anyway? ShouldnŐt it be clear and common sense that people should enjoy the
same level of human rights, regardless of nationality?
Not so in Japan, it seems.