A few years ago, and after much pressure from the United Nations and the international humanitarian cabal, Japan reluctantly agreed to take some refugees. Seems things aren’t working out so well as the 16 they planned to take this year backed out (Did they hear that the work was hard in Japan?).
As the program collapses and with a straight face, supporters of bringing the joys of diversity to Japan say ‘Japan will be left behind the international society!’
First consider visiting some of our older posts about Japan being dragged kicking and screaming into diluting its unique culture by typing ‘Japan’ into our search function. Here is one story you might start with. One of my favorite stories about Japan was this one where a blogger says he thinks Somalis would get along very well in Japan, and I don’t think he is kidding!
Now here is the latest news from Mainichi:
This year, the third since Japan launched a refugee resettlement system for refugees forced out of their homelands, it appears that the number of refugees applying to come and settle in Japan will sink to zero.
Supporters of these refugees warn that if nothing is done to improve the situation, Japan will be left behind by international society. This prodded me into thinking about what stance the nation should take on the refugees who fill the world.
Since 2010, 45 Myanmar refugees who had resided in refugee camps in Thailand have come to Japan to live under the nation’s refugee resettlement system. In September this year, Japan was due to accept 16 refugees from three families in its third round of the resettlement program. But before they left Thailand, relatives of one of the three families pleaded with them not to go, and that family subsequently made a turnabout and remained in Thailand. Another related family joined them in staying behind, and the remaining family felt uneasy about moving to Japan alone, so gave up on the idea. In the end, the number of applicants is said to have fallen to zero.
No applicants want to come this year!
In 2010, the United States accepted 54,077 refugees for resettlement. The corresponding figures for Canada and Australia were 6,706, and 5,636, respectively. Japan, on the other hand, accepted a mere 27 in its resettlement system. International society, which realized that Japan is not a country built on immigration, hoped that Japan could give birth to a small system that would grow into a large one. In March this year, Japan decided to extend the system for another two years, but the shock of having no applicants is rocking the system’s foundations.
Yikes! Hard work! And, this after they have had a “mere” six months of language and cultural orientation training (Imagine that, in the US the volags give refugees the ol’ heave-ho at well under six months and then we are giving publically-funded language and cultural training to Somalis on their culture and language!).
Improvements in the way refugees are accepted once they arrive in Japan are also vital. Two families from the first round of Myanmar refugees that arrived in Japan the year before last underwent workplace adaption training at an agricultural corporation in Chiba Prefecture, but claimed they were forced to work for long hours, contrary to what they had been told, and so they refused to work for the corporation and moved to Tokyo instead. The possibility cannot be ruled out that news of the commotion surrounding these two families eventually made its way to the refugee camp in Thailand, prompting other families to refrain from applying for the refugee resettlement program.
Read it all. Will the UN pounce on Japan? Watch for it!