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Burmese Refugees Face Difficulties

A group of 18 Burmese refugees recently arrived in Japan, where they will be resettled with the assistance of the Japanese government:

The newly arrived refugees — members of four ethnic Karen families — will take part in a 180-day support program, including Japanese language study and job training, before deciding where to work and live, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

A 33-year-old male refugee said he is happy to be in Japan and added, “I will do any work I can.”

Under Japan’s plan to accept 90 Myanmar refugees over three years starting in 2010, 27 refugees from five ethnic Karen families came to Japan last year as the first group, and now live in Chiba and Mie prefectures.

Unfortunately, the support being offered by the government does not seem to be enough. The refugees are only given 6 months of Japanese lessons before being dispatched to the new homes and work locations. As you can see from the video, both workers and employers feel that the language education has been adequate. Without proficiency in the Japanese language, it will be incredibly hard for these refugees to ever feel comfortable living in Japan.

And the work being offered to the refugees isn’t exactly attractive either. Two families that were sent to Chiba prefecture are refusing to work:

The families, who settled in the prefecture in March, are looking for jobs in Tokyo after complaining about the long work hours and low wages paid by the agricultural corporation that is running the farm during the training period, Shogo Watanabe of the Japan Lawyers Network for Refugees said at a news conference Monday.

They have refused to take the farming jobs as labor conditions have not improved despite a work boycott in July, Watanabe added.

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21 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - October 4, 2011 at 7:39 am

Categories: Foreigners in Japan Tags:

hunwari

Six month of Japanese lunguage course is more than enough for simple manual labor. As they don’t have any special skills, all the job they gonna get is such jobs, so they cannot use language problem as the reason for not working and live on social welfare.

If you go to factories in Chiba, you can see a lot of foreigners working. Most of those people have never took any Japanese couces before, and speak a little bit of Japanese. They are working fine with other Japanese employees. Also, all the manuals are written in different languages and a lot of graphics. Even in factories, they use several lunguage for signs.It is of course hard to live another country where you don’t speak local lunguage, but it is same for everyone who’s in same situation. They are not special once they decided to come to Japan. I hope they have chance to see other hard working immigrants in Japan. Anyway, working in Japan is like hell even for Japanese. They are going to miss refugee camp where they can get all the necessity without working from international organizations.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

They are not special once they decided to come to Japan.

They are special because the Japanese government agreed to accept them as part of the UNHCR initiative. The Japanese government took responsibility for giving them language lessons and finding them jobs and homes.

The foreigners already in the factories came by their own free will, not expecting any special help from the government.

The UN calls for providing refugees with means of integrating into the society of the country where they are re-settled. It’s not a “let’s turn them into manual laborers who will never speak our language and never integrate into our society” project.

http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4a16b1676.html
Baseface

“They are going to miss refugee camp…”

Listen, I’m as appalled as anyone by the lack of some of the basic utilities here in Japan. The lack of hot water in washing machines or public handbasins; long-drop toilets in the inaka; the inhumanely cramped conditions on many trains which would probably contravene many European regulations for the transport of livestock; no central heating or basic insulation; tiny freezers; a complete lack of sensible zoning regulations or town planning; the list goes on.

But you shouldn’t be so down on Japan. It’s got a lot going for it! I’m sure if you sit down and think really hard, you can come up with lots of ways Japan is better than a Burmese refugee camp.

The key is thinking really hard. Or just thinking. At all…

http://www.billowykimono.com Senor Science

“Listen, I’m as appalled as anyone by the lack of some of the basic utilities here in Japan. The lack of hot water in washing machines or public handbasins; long-drop toilets in the inaka; the inhumanely cramped conditions on many trains which would probably contravene many European regulations for the transport of livestock; no central heating or basic insulation; tiny freezers; a complete lack of sensible zoning regulations or town planning; the list goes on.”

Sounds like someone has a case of the first world problems.

EDIT: I’m not implying that Japan is a third world country – I just find someone whining about the lack of hot water in washing machines to be downright pathetic.

Baseface

And Poe’s Law pops up again. I’d have hoped that the last sentence would have shown that I was being sarcastic. The whole point of that post was to point out how idiotic it is to suggest that living in a refugee camp is an unending life of ease and luxurious handouts.

The stuff on that list was mildly surprising when I first got here, and is occasionally slightly irritating now, but certainly not appalling. And certainly no worse than the irritations I’ve experienced in other countries. And definitely better than living as a refugee (I’d imagine. Fortunately I never have, and I’d suspect hunwari hasn’t either).

I realise I’m not exactly Swift, but please credit me with some level of perspective.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go make toast. Life is terrible.
http://thechive.com/2011/08/29/20-first-world-problems-20-photos/first-world-problems-5/

http://twitter.com/Karina1003 Karina1003

Life is extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, if you cannot use Japanese fluently. I highly doubt these people have got much of an education or skills really. I do not like the idea of unskilled people coming to live in Japan for whatever reason. For the sake of the refugees, and for Japanese society, I wish they could be sent to somewhere else.

Piglet

“I do not like the idea of unskilled people coming to live in Japan for whatever reason.”
Again another anti-immigration apologist. Get ready to see more and more foreigners (skilled and unskilled) in Japan because the economy is not sustainable in the medium term without them (with a decreasing working population, a shrinking tax base and an explosion of medical and social spending). Either that or Japan will fade into irrelevance and decreasing standard of living (it already started).

Kevin not kevin

Well one could already say that there’s no future for unskilled laborers here. Already there’s talk that China is becoming too expensive for manufacturing, so the big corporations are looking for the next region to abuse. If even China can’t compete, the manufacturing future for Japan is pretty much nil.

Piglet

Japan will probably have to focus more on the knowledge/service industry (high-tech, R&D, finance,etc…) than on manufacturing (or on specialized technical manufacturing like Germany) in the next few years. Many of the jobs to be filled are anyway not in the manufacturing or agricultural areas. In the next ten years, Japan will have to fill more and more jobs as a lot of people will retire. This will require both an increased female participation in the working environment and increased immigration. This is pure mathematics. Refusing this will sign the decline of Japan, which none of us want to happen.

Piglet

With a 200% debt, shrinking tax base and exploding social spending, you definitely to at least stabilize the tax base and pray for the credit rates to stay as low as they are now.

Piglet

This is more or less the same problem in many developed countries, but the situation is more pressing in Japan as the population already started to shrink.

Anonymous

And that next region to abuse would who knows become the third world’s biggest economy and Japan would farther slide to being the fourth. Surely those companies outsourcing jobs to other countries are making a disservice to Japan and who knows those people are sangokujin out to destroy Japan.

bernician

Sounds like Japan wanted people who knew no better than the simple farming life and thought they would be happy with it. These guys of course had seen the lights and wanted a nice decent modern life… Understandable on their part of course but kind of sad as its bound to put Japan off bringing in more poor people from dodgy countries.
Anonymous

“90 Myanmar refugees over three years”

Wow, way to open up those floodgates Japan. It’s hard to imagine you could do any less and still participate in the UN program.

Maybe it’s time you looked into the “what goes around comes around” karma thingy.
Seon

Just send them back, geez.

Anonymous

I think so too. They’re an addition to the rat race. I just wonder how many months would it take them to bloat. See, many foreigners come here looking malnourished and with a span of less than 5 yrs they all swell.

Anonymous

What a life! Seems they’ll have their own place to live unlike some Fukushima evacuees who still remain in shelters. Noneed to accept refugees. There’s already a lot of us here. They’re an addition to the rat race we’re in. And I do agree they’re expecting a sweet life here in Japan. Just look at all the homeless Japanese citizens. Instead of giving out to strangers who have never contributed to the social insurance nor paid taxes not even once why not give that alms to one of their own. Or better still to me as I’ve been jobless for months now.

C. Kaplan

I agree with you completely. I think they’re acting entitled and spoiled. I bet there are plenty of others who would love to be in their shoes. I’m a foreigner and I - *gasp* studied Japanese ON MY OWN, without government handouts – while I did my best at my job at the time. People with their attitude really do need to be sent back to where they started if they’re going to complain. They ought to be grateful for what they’ve been offered.

lars

Are you serious? What country are you originally from? There’s a big difference between “pulling yourself by your bootstraps” living in America, Australia, or other “Western” countries and being a REFUGEE. Do you know anything about Burma?

Anonymous

6 months of language training would mean receiving from 10 man to 12 man for 6 months. And there are how many of them ? And more coming soon?
Bruce Smith

6 months in Japan with free Japanese lessons should be enough to be ready to start work in a basic job.

Also the sooner they start working in 100% immersion in a Japanese workplace the sooner their Japanese will improve.

Burmese Refugees Face Difficulties

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