Respect us being human and stop the overkill of our rights as foreign migrants now!
(Statement of participants of the Filipino Community Leaders Convention
Tsunagareto Gender Equality Center, Chiyoda-ku, Nagoya City, February 29, 2004)

We, the participants of the convention of Filipino community leaders in Japan is raising our concerns and appeal to immediately pull down the immigration bureau webpage wherein the public are encouraged to send in by email information about illegal foreign residents. While we as ordinary foreign people do not question the authority to implement the rule for the Japanese public interest, we are duty bound to express that the said webpage introduced last February 16, 2004 is an outright violation to the rights and welfare of all foreign migrants in the country.

Treating the overstaying foreigners as criminal based on The Immigration Control And Refugee Recoginition Act ammendment and was enforced starting Ferbuary 2000 is more than enough to make people in Japan believe that overstaying of foreigners is a crime. There is no other country especially among members of G8 countries that treat overstaying beyond allowed visa permit as crime except Japan. The objectionable webpage is viewed as an agitation among Japanese people to be against foreigners and encouraging the Japanese public to do such action like reporting over the web on the presence of suspected illegal foreigners. This is an overkill to the human rights regardless of visa status of all of us foreigners as well as Japanese children with half foreign blood relations living in the country.

The immigration bureau web page hype contravenes the signed international conventions that Japan acceded like the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (signed on 15 December 1995). The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Japan became party in 1979 to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnicity, is in complete disregard by the web page posting.

The much protested web page will results to heigthened public prejudices not only against visa overstayers and illegal entrants but against all foreign parents especially women and their Japanese children and the foreign-Japanese families. To mention just a few, this webpage is now an added armory for abusers of domestic violence against foreign women and Japanese children of half foreign parentage. If marital conflict between Japanese-foreign couple, the threat of not giving a visa sponsorship to the foreign spouse of Japanese can now be coupled with threat of the Japanese spouse to make email report to the immigration of his/her partner as an overstayer as potential case maybe. The growth of Japanese children with threatened foreign parentage also suffers.

The web page in protest is an act that the Japanese government is outrigthly violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child (signed by the Government of Japan, 24 April 1994), United Nation’s International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (Signed by the Government of Japan, 21 June 1979), and the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW (Signed by the Government of Japan, 25 June 1985).

Even foreigners as we are, this statement is to express our care for the Japanese government to continue to strive in realizing a society without any form of racial and ethnic discrimination as has been declared in the above international convention that Japan became a party, signed and adheres with. It was indeed upholding the principle of the Japanese constitution as stipulated in Paragraph 1 Article 14 that “all of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin,” as the fundamental reasons behind Japan being a party and signatory to the above international conventions.

Should there be some in the public who cannot easily understand the presence of all of us foreign migrants, the act of the government should be based on the fundamentals of the constitution and with its commitment to the above signed international conventions. The government should use the international conventions as instrument in educating the public as her obligation to the international community to avoid unecessary promotions of anti-foreign sentiments among the public.

Shutting down now the immigration bureau web page that promotes hatred to other people race is the common desire not only among us as foreigners and foreign-loving Japanese in Japan but as well as by the international community.

Participants of the Filipino Community Leaders Convention
Tsunagareto Gender Equality Center
Chiyoda-ku, Nagoya City
February 29, 2004

Signatories:

Filipino Migrants Center (FMC) – Nagoya
Center for Japanese-Filipino Families (CJFF) – Tokyo
MIGRANTE Party List – Japan Chapter
Filipina Circle for Advancement and Progress (FICAP) – Aichi
Kalipunan ng mga Filipinong Nagkakaisa (KAFIN) - Saitama
Kalipunan ng mga Filipinong Nagkakaisa (KAFIN) – Tokyo
Kalipunan ng mga Filipinong Nagkakaisa (KAFIN) – Nagoya
Kalipunan ng mga Filipinong Nagkakaisa (KAFIN) – Osaka
Philippine Society in Japan (PSJ) – Nagoya
League of Filipino Seniors (LFS) – Nagoya
Ecumenical Learning Center for Children (ELCC) – Nagoya
Suwa Catholic Church Filipino Community - Nagano

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