It has been a decade since Liliane last saw her little girl. She fled Africa in fear for her life, leaving behind everything she knew and loved in the hope of a fresh start in Japan.
Today, she scrapes a living from dead-end jobs and what Japanese she knows has been snatched from TV shows. There is little government help for people like her: Free language courses are limited, social housing is hard to find and discrimination is rife.
Yet, Liliane is regarded as one of the lucky ones — she was granted refugee status in Japan, a country that refuses more than 99 percent of cases.
“It has not been easy,” she told reporters, speaking under a pseudonym. “Here they do not pay for your studies, they do not help you to get bank loans, or give you social housing... We are left to ourselves, we have to fight alone.”
Anti-refugee sentiment is rising in Europe and the US, but in Japan those seeking haven from tyranny and war have long faced daunting legal and social gauntlets.
One of the world’s wealthiest countries, Japan last year accepted just 28 refugees — one more than the previous year — out of the 8,193 applications reviewed by the Japanese Immigration Bureau.
Officials defend the low number, saying applicants are mainly from Asian countries seeking access to Japan solely for economic reasons.
“The number of applications from regions which generate lots of refugees, such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, is small,” bureau spokesman Yasuhiro Hishida said.
Assisted by the UN, Liliane was able to claim asylum on arrival in Japan, saying that her life was in danger due to tribal conflict back home. It took two years for officials to accept her as a refugee, a period during which she received assistance from the Catholic Church and charities.
However, she feels the status brought few benefits. She is no closer to reuniting with her child — now a teenager, her daughter has repeatedly been denied a permit to even visit.
For Liliane, further education and a stable life, seem out of reach.
“Japan is a very difficult country for foreigners. The language is really a handicap for us. You need to do absolutely everything to try to speak in Japanese, but you don’t know where to find free lessons,” she said. “Sometimes I think refugee status has no meaning.”
However, for Nonnon, being awarded refugee status would at least give her a sense of belonging.
She fled military persecution in her native Myanmar 25 years ago, but remains in frustrating legal limbo, accepted only on a humanitarian stay visa, which allows for residence and work, but traditionally only on annual temporary permits subject to anxiety-riven renewal.
“It’s like I have no nationality,” said the 47-year-old, who only gave her childhood nickname.
She has tried to forge a life in Japan, marrying a man from Myanmar who was also claiming asylum and they have a son and a daughter. However, their children are effectively stateless — not recognized in Myanmar, nor as Japanese citizens.
Refugee advocates have said Japan’s system is too harsh.
Lawyer Shogo Watanabe is helping a woman from Myanmar’s Kachin minority who says she risks sexual assault by soldiers fighting ethnic minority militias if she goes home.
“To me, the risk of getting raped by someone who is a member of the military is a legitimate reason to be a refugee, but immigration officials say you need to prove that she is actually targeted by the military,” he said of her plight.
Critics have also said that government policy ignores the country’s need for immigrants as the population shrinks.
“Japan has kept a mindset of closing doors to foreigners, as it is an island nation that until recently had ample population,” said Hidenori Sakanaka, a former Japanese Ministry of Justice official who heads a pro-immigration think tank.
The population is set to decline from 127 million today to 87 million by 2060.
He added that Japan must “accept more migrants, which would make society more open to multiple cultures and ... to accepting more refugees.”
The first ministry survey into discrimination against foreigners, released in March, found that 30 percent said they had been on the receiving end of discriminatory remarks.
One in four of the respondents that had sought employment believed they did not get the job because they were not Japanese.
“For us with our black skin, it is a bit difficult. Sometimes when I sit on the train, some Japanese switch seats,” Liliane said, but added that she has never feared for her safety, which is a major concern for asylum seekers in Europe.
She said she was overlooked for teaching work, despite her fluency in English, when employers realized she is African.
Nonnon, who works in a nail salon, said she is being paid less than Japanese workers for doing the same job.
She contrasted her situation to that of family members who escaped to other countries.
“My relatives in America and Australia were given refugee status and they are naturalized. They can get a job, buy a house and travel overseas,” she said. “They can live as normal people. I want to live like a normal person.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not