When envisaging a future society, we often forget to take into account the views of foreign residents who have long been with us.
As of June, 3.59 million foreign residents lived in Japan, a number that has continued to set record highs since the novel coronavirus pandemic ended.
They currently account for less than 3 percent of Japan’s population, but the government estimates that, partly in view of falling birthrates, the corresponding ratio will exceed 10 percent in 2070.
The government is banking on future increases in non-Japanese residents to support Japan’s pension system.
We cannot afford to sidestep the challenge of designing a society where all members are respected, whatever their nationality or ethnicity, and can feel happy to continue living in it.
The environment surrounding young non-Japanese people is riddled with problems, which need to be addressed carefully.
TREND FOR LONG-TERM RESIDENCE
Yusuke Chinen, a 27-year-old resident of Nagoya, was born and raised in Toyama Prefecture. His parents are Japanese-Brazilians who came to Japan as “dekassegui,” or migrant, workers.
His parents’ native language is Portuguese, and they are less than proficient in Japanese.
As early as in his elementary school years, Chinen served as his parents’ interpreter when they had to communicate with school or local government officials, or when they signed up for cellphone services and did other dealings.
However, he was unsure he was explaining things properly enough.
Chinen aspired to be a lawyer because he wanted to help those in need.
He attended nearby public schools until senior high school age. He received scholarships for university and a law school, and he passed the national bar examination in 2022.
Chinen is the third person of Brazilian origin with a license to practice Japanese law, sources said.
His parents were both temporary staffing agency workers.
“I am what I am now because my parents refrained from extravagance and gave top priority to education,” he said gratefully.
He knows that similar opportunities are not available to all children with non-Japanese backgrounds.
Requests that Chinen receives from Japanese-Brazilians, which make up the bulk of his work, typically have to do with traffic accidents, labor issues and other subjects that are no different from the problems that Japanese nationals face.
But non-Japanese citizens may find themselves in more complicated situations over certain issues, such as child custody for divorced couples, where laws of multiple nations come into play.
We should ask ourselves if the institutional arrangements that are currently available here can cope with growing demand in the coming years, regardless of country or region of origin of those involved.
REMOVING BARRIERS
“Permanent residents” and other non-Japanese who face no employment restrictions account for more than 40 percent of foreign nationals residing in Japan.
A trend for long-term residence has increased the number of those born and raised in Japan. The population of non-Japanese nationals in the country aged 19 or younger grew 60 percent during a recent 10-year period.
A law change that will abolish the “technical intern training” system and make it easier for non-Japanese to envisage long-term residence in Japan is expected to take effect no later than 2027. That will naturally increase the number of foreign residents who form families in Japan.
An arrangement for accommodating similar people in Japan, however, has yet to be established.
For example, the parents and other guardians of non-Japanese children are exempt from the obligation to send their children to school.
The education ministry’s fiscal 2023 survey showed that 8,600 or so foreign children of elementary and junior high school age may not be attending school.
Certain local governments, including Kani in Gifu Prefecture, have set a goal of having all foreign children attend school.
Non-Japanese families, however, are not always notified of information about their children’s schooling.
Resident registration of foreigners is not automatically shared by education departments in 20 percent of Japan’s local governments.
Schools serve as a channel that links children and their family members to various public administration services.
Access to schools should, therefore, be guaranteed before everything else.
The number of children who need coaching in Japanese is also growing.
The senior high school dropout rate among students who need language assistance is 8.5 percent, far exceeding the 1.1 percent overall average.
Among senior high school students who have landed jobs on graduation, 38.6 percent of those who needed additional language support are working without regular contracts, far above the 3.1 percent for all job-landing high schoolers.
Japanese language coaching at elementary, junior high and senior high schools should be expanded to lessen the handicap that similar children face when they go out into the world.
While it is problematic that nothing has been done to improve the precarious employment situation for first-generation immigrants, whether their children face the same disadvantage will emerge as a touchstone for fairness in our society.
And central and local governments must ensure they are hosting living humans instead of just “working hands.”
SETTING IDEALS
If different local governments in Japan are taking different policy approaches to foreign residents, that is partly because the country has no basic law that can serve as a foundation.
In 2019, the Japan Designated Cities Mayors Association, consisting of the leaders of the 20 ordinance-designated major cities in Japan, called for a basic law that would provide the grounds for policy measures, including the concept of inclusiveness.
It is high time to develop legally setting ideals that should be observed not only by local governments, which are close to the front lines of multicultural inclusivity, but also by the central government, businesses, citizens and other parties.
Since World War II, Western nations have accepted large numbers of immigrants and faced the conundrum of how to ensure their social inclusion.
Japan, by contrast, has long even tabooed the phrase “immigrant policy.”
In reality, however, the country has been accepting South American workers of Japanese descent since the 1980s and has also given tacit approval to working overstayers as long as they help underpin the economy.
Ethnic Kurds in the south of Saitama Prefecture have been targeted in recent years by increasingly serious discrimination and prejudice.
We should remember, however, that they are members of this society who are working and thereby supporting it.
Japan itself was a sender of immigrants until the 1960s. We should not forget the bygone years when our compatriots went through the hardships of surviving in alien lands.
Options should be considered for broadening channels to reflect the views of foreign residents in policy measures for inclusivity.
Some local governments already have panels whose members include non-Japanese residents.
In a trial over local voting rights for foreign nationals, the Supreme Court ruled the Constitution does not forbid the development of a law that would give suffrage to “those who have formed particularly close ties” with the local autonomous bodies they live in.
Thirty years from that precedent, there is an even greater need to discuss the matter.
The Diet should take the lead in defending the rights of those who are not entitled to elect their representatives.
–The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 12
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