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The Mainichi
12-07-2025
- Politics
- The Mainichi
'Mom, who gave you these?' Foreigners in Japan with no status wish to work to exit poverty
TOKYO -- In Japan's July 20 upper house election, a number of political parties have pledged restrictions and tighter measures for foreign nationals if they are voted in. Amid this situation, a foreign woman in Yokohama who has lost her residency status and now lives in poverty on "provisional release," expressed her wish to continue living in Japan, saying, "I want my sick child to receive due medical care." The woman, who is from an African country, arrived in Japan in 2018 and had four children with her partner she met in Japan. In a tearful appeal at a press conference on July 10, after losing her residency status and national health insurance, she pleaded for the opportunity to work and raise her children like other parents. She has two daughters, aged 6 and 3, and 2-year-old twin sons. One of the twins has a serious illness apparently requiring three surgeries. Although the child underwent the first surgery last year, the mother's application for refugee status was later rejected, stripping the family of residency eligibility and access to Japan's national health insurance system. As a result, the remaining two necessary surgeries have become financially unattainable. Currently, she lives under a supervisory arrangement permitting limited social activities under the oversight of supporters, relying on assistance provided by support groups. When the woman gave clothes to her eldest daughter, she chose not to mention they had been donated by a support organization. However, the child immediately asked, "Mom, who gave you these?" Unable to answer, the woman said that the experience deeply pained her. "I want to be able to work like everyone else, and raise my children," the woman said through tears at the press conference organized by the Anti-Poverty Campaign, a group supporting impoverished residents. She is currently undergoing a second attempt at refugee recognition. In May, Japan's Immigration Services Agency published a "zero illegal overstay plan," urging individuals without residency status to return to their countries. According to agency data, as of Jan. 1 this year, there were 74,863 people overstaying in Japan -- about one-quarter of the peak 298,646 recorded in 1993. At the press conference, foreign residents in Japan shared their hardships. Kenji Utsunomiya, director of the Anti-Poverty Campaign, stated, "Instead of targeting vulnerable people, we must protect the human rights and dignity of all people living in Japan," adding, "This House of Councillors election will test our commitment to freedom, human rights and democracy." (Japanese original by Daiki Yano, Yokohama Bureau)
Yomiuri Shimbun
06-07-2025
- Health
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Foreigners May Have to Pay Lump Sum for Health Insurance in Some Parts of Japan
Foreign residents may soon have to pay their national health insurance premiums up front in some areas, according to a plan by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The move is meant to keep foreign residents from dodging medical fees. National health insurance, part of the social safety net, is managed by prefectural and municipal governments. The program enrolls people who are self-employed, jobless or under nonregular contracts. Foreigners must enroll if they live in Japan for more than three months and are not covered by any other insurance, such as what they might receive from their place of work. In fiscal 2023, national health insurance covered 970,000 foreigners, who accounted for 4% of the total. As of the end of 2024, foreigners were only paying their insurance premiums 63% of the time, well below the 93% figure for all residents of Japan, both Japanese and foreign nationals, according to a survey by the ministry of 150 municipalities. Under the national health insurance program, those who are enrolled receive payment slips by mail and use them to pay their premiums. But many foreigners fail to make these payments. The ministry believes this is because they lack such systems at home and do not understand why they must pay into the program. Members of the ruling parties and the opposition have called for insurance premiums to be paid in advance, claiming that some foreigners who do not join the national health insurance program also shirk their medical bills. The ministry aims to notify municipalities this fiscal year of what ordinances they need to amend so that they can require advance payment of premiums beginning as early as next April. However, it will be up to each local government to decide whether they change the way they bill premiums. The ministry plans to have foreigners, when they move to Japan and register with a local government, pay a lump sum for national health insurance, such as the cost for a year's worth of coverage. For the national pension, premiums are the same nationwide and there is already a system that allows people to pay their premiums in advance. However, premiums for national health insurance differ by municipality. If foreign residents move to other municipalities after paying a lump sum, the municipality will have to partially refund the payment, which could place new burdens on municipalities. Because of this, the ministry will let each municipality decide whether to require lump sum payments for national health insurance. The health ministry will also begin improving its understanding of foreign residents' payment history. Currently, most local governments do not know whether foreign residents are paying their insurance premiums because they do not know the nationality or residence status of those enrolled in insurance. Improvements will be made in fiscal 2026, and the Immigration Services Agency will use records of premium payments to screen residents as early as June 2027. In the future, the government hopes to make it possible to also share information about whether foreigners are paying their pension premiums and medical fees. If foreigners are found to have not made the necessary payments, the government could refuse to renew their residence status.
The Mainichi
30-06-2025
- Business
- The Mainichi
Real estate firm, local gov't in Fukuoka Pref. helping foreign residents find housing
FUKUOKA -- A real estate agency and the local government in southwest Japan's Fukuoka Prefecture are beefing up support systems for the growing number of foreign residents to find housing with help from those who speak their native tongues. According to the latest statistics from the Immigration Services Agency, the number of foreign residents in Fukuoka Prefecture reached 105,049 as of June 2024, up from 99,695 in the previous count in December 2023. The largest groups by nationality are Vietnamese, Chinese, Nepalese, South Korean, Filipino and Indonesian. In response, major rental housing company Leopalace21 Corp. has established the International Front Center (IFC) Fukuoka counter at a branch near JR Hakata Station in Fukuoka's Hakata Ward, where four staff members from overseas assist clients in languages including English, Chinese and Korean. In Japan, foreign residents sometimes face issues related to garbage disposal and noise, often due to misunderstanding of local rules. The staff provide detailed explanations in the residents' native languages to address cultural and lifestyle differences. IFC Fukuoka manager Wei Delin, 42, is originally from Dalian, China, and studied in Fukuoka. He said, "I also felt anxious back then, and having someone to talk to in my native language was crucial. I want to help foreign nationals feel at ease and contribute to harmonious coexistence." Meanwhile, the Fukuoka Prefectural Government in October 2024 opened the "Fukuoka is Open Center" in the Acros Fukuoka cultural facility in the city's Chuo Ward, offering one-stop consultations on living and employment concerns in 24 languages, including English, Chinese and Vietnamese. According to the prefecture, including the period of its predecessor help desk, there were over 1,000 consultations in fiscal 2024 alone. Inquiries range from residence status and employment to questions such as what to do about a guarantor when renting an apartment.
The Mainichi
20-06-2025
- Politics
- The Mainichi
Japan court awards asylum seekers damages over prolonged detention
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A Japanese district court has ordered the state to pay a total of 1.2 million yen ($8,260) in compensation to two asylum seekers, ruling that in some cases their repeated detentions by the country's immigration agency did not take account of their physical and mental conditions. Deniz, a Kurdish man in his 40s with Turkish nationality, and Heydar Safari Diman, an Iranian national in his 50s, sought about 30 million yen in damages, after they were detained and released several times over the space of more than a decade. They filed the lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court in 2022 focusing on their treatment from 2016. The ruling handed down on Tuesday said that on some occasions, they were detained despite deteriorating health conditions, such as a diagnosis of depression. "We cannot say the necessity of detention overrode their physical and mental disadvantages," the court said, ruling that some of their detentions violated the International Covenants on Human Rights and amounted to unjust physical restraint prohibited by Japan's immigration law. The plaintiffs also questioned the immigration law itself, which allows detention without going through a review process such as trials, saying that it infringes the human rights covenants. But the court dismissed their claim on the grounds that their rights to a trial are guaranteed through a lawsuit seeking release. Masako Suzuki, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, underscored the significance of the ruling, telling a press conference that it "clearly acknowledges that there was a violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights in the detention." The Immigration Services Agency has said it will respond "appropriately" after reviewing details of the ruling, since some of its claims were not upheld. According to the complaint, Deniz, who declined to give his surname for fear of retaliation against his family in Turkey, and Safari Diman had both overstayed their visas and were subsequently repeatedly detained by the Immigration Services Agency. From 2016 to 2020, they were detained several times for a total of more than three and a half years each, the complaint said. They have been on provisional releases since the spring of 2020, according to their supporters. Seeking help from the international community, the two had notified a U.N. expert panel on arbitrary detention of their cases, leading the panel to release an opinion in 2020 that found their deprivation of liberty was "arbitrary" and contravened human rights covenants.
Japan Today
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Court awards 2 asylum seekers damages over prolonged detention
A Japanese district court has ordered the state to pay a total of 1.2 million yen in compensation to two asylum seekers, ruling that in some cases their repeated detentions by the country's immigration agency did not take account of their physical and mental conditions. Deniz, a Kurdish man in his 40s with Turkish nationality, and Heydar Safari Diman, an Iranian national in his 50s, sought about 30 million yen in damages, after they were detained and released several times over the space of more than a decade. They filed the lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court in 2022 focusing on their treatment from 2016. The ruling handed down on Tuesday said that on some occasions, they were detained despite deteriorating health conditions, such as a diagnosis of depression. "We cannot say the necessity of detention overrode their physical and mental disadvantages," the court said, ruling that some of their detentions violated the International Covenants on Human Rights and amounted to unjust physical restraint prohibited by Japan's immigration law. The plaintiffs also questioned the immigration law itself, which allows detention without going through a review process such as trials, saying that it infringes the human rights covenants. But the court dismissed their claim on the grounds that their rights to a trial are guaranteed through a lawsuit seeking release. Masako Suzuki, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, underscored the significance of the ruling, telling a press conference that it "clearly acknowledges that there was a violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights in the detention." The Immigration Services Agency has said it will respond "appropriately" after reviewing details of the ruling, since some of its claims were not upheld. According to the complaint, Deniz, who declined to give his surname for fear of retaliation against his family in Turkey, and Safari Diman had both overstayed their visas and were subsequently repeatedly detained by the Immigration Services Agency. From 2016 to 2020, they were detained several times for a total of more than three and a half years each, the complaint said. They have been on provisional releases since the spring of 2020, according to their supporters. Seeking help from the international community, the two had notified a U.N. expert panel on arbitrary detention of their cases, leading the panel to release an opinion in 2020 that found their deprivation of liberty was "arbitrary" and contravened human rights covenants. © KYODO
