Research Report for Cycle 2

HIDDEN IMMIGRANTS IN JAPAN

My Motivation for This Research

I first became interested in issues around foreign workers in Japan when I saw a TV drama, MIU404 (TBS 2020). It centered around an international student from Vietnam in a Japanese language school. Her primary purpose for visiting Japan was to earn money rather than study. She has multiple part-time jobs to help her family while also paying back the debt she got to come to Japan. There are many other students like her, often described as 偽装留学生. Having heard that the Japanese government has overlooked the existence of these students to get a cheap workforce, I thought it would be a good idea to look into this topic.

My Research Focus and Starting Questions

Many Japanese people, including me, are ignorant of the issues for immigrants in Japan. To uncover the reasons why, I set the following as my starting questions.

What types of foreign workers are there in Japan?
Why do Japanese people not recognize the issues for foreign workers?
Why does the government not want to admit the workers are essentially immigrants?

Stories of Technical Intern Trainees

Liu Hongmei さん

Liu Hongmei, a Chinese trainee, started working in a garment factory in 2014. New York Times interviewed her in 2017. She ironed and packed clothing as “technical training,” where in fact, she was only used to fill in the labor shortage. The working environment was terrible, and her bosses “treated her like slaves.” Before coming to Japan, she got in debt to pay $7,000 to a broker to arrange her visa. Her wage, however, was lower than promised, and she had trouble paying back the debt. According to the Basic Survey on Wage Structure in 2019, the average wage of technical interns is ¥156,900, whereas that of all workers around the same age was ¥243,900. Liu’s story well explains the troubling reality that trainees are only considered the immediate workforce.

レー・ティ・トゥイ・リンさん

She was a 21-year-old Vietnamese technical intern trainee in Kumamoto who got pregnant during her internship. Since she was afraid of getting fired and sent back home, she kept working and gave birth to twin stillborn babies alone in her room. She put their bodies in a box and kept it on a shelf with a letter on which Buddhist prayer was written (picture on the left). Later, she was charged with abandoning dead bodies. If she felt secure about her right to have children to be protected, this incident would not have occurred.

Article 9 of the Equal Opportunity and Treatment between Men and Women in Employment writes, “Employers shall not stipulate marriage, pregnancy, or childbirth as a reason for retirement of women workers.” It emphasizes that “employers shall not dismiss or give disadvantageous treatment to women workers by reason of pregnancy, childbirth, or for requesting absence from work.” The Organization for Technical Intern Training has cautioned that the Equal Opportunity Act, along with the Labor Standards Act, applies to technical intern trainees and that limiting the personal life of trainees is a violation of the Act on Proper Technical Intern Training and Protection of Technical Intern Trainees. Nonetheless, some employers, brokers, or supervising organizations instruct trainees not to have children, sometimes with contracts. The government does not enforce these laws strictly, and interns are treated like working robots without a personal life.

Main Questions

Who are "外国人労働者” and "immigrants"?
What may happen in the future?
What can be done?

Who are "外国人労働者" and "immigrants" ?

According to the Immigration Service Agency of Japan, Japan now has over 1.7 million foreign workers, approximately 20% of which are technical intern trainees. 45% of all foreign workers are, in fact, people with residence statuses other than working, like technical interns. The Technical Intern Training Program aims to transfer skills and technologies to developing countries and promote international cooperation. Another 20% are international students, who are allowed to work a maximum of 28 hours per week. These workers are low-paid and can be quickly laid off when needed as mere adjustments for the labor force. The Japanese government seeks to keep rotating them without giving permanent residency and save social security fees. The government, therefore, does not give them any legal status as immigrants; they are nothing more than “foreign workers."

「外国人雇用状況」の届出状況まとめ, 令和２年10月現在

Although there is no internationally-accepted legal definition for an immigrant, Jessica Bolter of Migration Policy Institute says it usually refers to a person who lives in a county other than their place of birth. On the contrary, in 2016, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan described it as "a person who has permanent residency when entering Japan," a narrower definition. Following this Japanese definition, only 38.5% of all foreign residents count as immigrants, compared to 76.4% of the standard universal definition.

What may happen in the future?

Cases in Germany

The history of Germany offers valuable insight into Japan's future. Germany implemented a similar rotation policy after World War II, inviting foreign workers in the face of a labor shortage. In 2008, the former chancellor Angela Merkel said, "We kidded ourselves a while. We said: 'They won't stay, sometime they will be gone,' but this isn't reality." The lack of immigration policy led to a growing conflict between Germans and immigrants, which may be the future of Japan.

Influence of the new 特定技能 residency status

In April 2019, the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act was amended with new residency status, Specified Skilled Workers. Previously, Japan only accepted the immigration of highly skilled professionals. However, with this new status of residence, it became easier for more types of workers to work and stay in Japan for an extended period. The status was established “for the acceptance of work-ready foreign nationals who have a certain degree of expertise and skills in the industrial fields where it is still difficult to secure human resources even if efforts have been made to improve productivity and secure domestic human resources.” There are 14 specified industry fields like nursing care, building cleaning management, machine parts & tools industries, etc. Workers who engage in construction and shipbuilding can stay in Japan forever if they renew their status and can be accompanied by family members, which means there will be more immigrants. However, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe commented on this amendment in the House of Representatives plenary session that there was no plan to take immigration policy.

What can be done?

Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX)

The Migrant Integration Policy Index, Japan

The Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) evaluates immigrant integration policies in 8 different areas: access to nationality, anti-discrimination, education, family reunion, health, labor market mobility, permanent residence, and political participation. Of 56 countries studied, Canada, the United States, Brazil, Australia, and several Scandinavian countries received the highest scores. In 2019, Japan received an overall score of 47 out of 100, ranking 35th. The scores are particularly low in education, political participation, and anti-discrimination, with 33, 30, and 16 points, respectively.

From this score, it can be said that Japan should set laws that specifically prohibit discrimination against foreign people. Education for second-generation immigrants is also important.

Insights

Through this research, I learned that Japan hides the existence of immigrants by taking a rotation policy and calling them 外国人労働者. The government must implement social integration policies for immigrants to avoid possible conflict between Japanese people and immigrants. The rotation policy hides the existence of immigrants in Japan, which has already caused human rights issues for foreign workers and may further divide the foreign and Japanese communities. The government needs to immediately admit the existence of immigrants and establish integration policies to create a society where immigrants and Japanese can unite.

My New Interests and Questions

Although I was able to look at the existing problems around immigrants in Japan broadly, I was able to look deeply into the solutions. I would like to look at immigration policies in many other countries in more detail and see how the rights of immigrants are protected there. In addition, since I started my research from 労働者's point of view, the non-working immigrants, like wives and children, were neglected. I also ignored the discussion between 統合 or 多文化. Integration policy may sometimes disrespect the original culture of immigrants and may not necessarily be the best.

Reference

Explainer; Who is An Immigrant?, Jessica Bolter, Feb. 2019, Migration Policy Institute, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/explainer-who-immigrant#:~:text=Simply%20put%2C%20an%20immigrant%20is,forever%20be%20an%20international%20migrant
Merkel says German multicultural society has failed, Oct.17, 2010, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11559451
Japan Limited Immigration; Now It’s Short of Workers, New York Times, 10 Feb 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/business/japan-immigrants-workers-trump.html
Initiatives to Accept New Foreign Nationals and for the Realization of Society of Harmonious Coexistence. Immigration Services Agency of Japan, April 2022. https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/930004452.pdf
厚生労働省(2020)、「令和元年賃金構造基本統計調査」https://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/itiran/roudou/chingin/kouzou/z2019/dl/12.pdf
「外国人労働者≠移民」とする日本が陥る罠の怖さ，翁邦雄，東洋経済オンライン, https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/508562
彼女がしたことは犯罪なのか。あるベトナム人技能実習生の妊娠と死産, 望月優太Jun. 16, 2021, 難民支援協会, https://www.refugee.or.jp/fukuzatsu/hirokimochizuki08
Why do some foreign trainees in Japan abandon their babies?, Dec. 29, 2020, Mainichi, Yuki Kusisu, https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201229/p2a/00m/0na/015000c
Act on Securing, Etc. of Equal Opportunity and Treatment between Men and Women in Employment, Japanese Law Translation, https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/ja/laws/view/60/je

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