Immigration Laws: January, 2004 - Number #11

Japan has a large sex industry based on Filipina, Thai and increasingly Chinese and South American women; the industry had estimated revenues of $2.4 trillion yen in 2001. One researcher found that 95 percent of the women working in karaoke and hostess bars "were forced to engage in sex" with clients. Japan issues about 40,000 "entertainer visas" a year to Filipinas who are meant to be to be professional singers and dancers, but researchers say that few of them confine themselves to singing and dancing.

Hidenori Sakanaka, director general at the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau, said in January 2003 that Japan needs to have a debate about immigration. In 2003, some 1.85 million registered foreigners lived in Japan.

An October 2003 crackdown found 1,600 unauthorized foreigners in the Tokyo area, and the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau plans to add 150 officers at Japan's eight regional immigration bureaus to detect illegal foreigners. Between January and November 2003, 43 percent of the 1,672 foreigners suspected of violating the Penal Code in Tokyo were current and former foreign students.

Most Japanese oppose allowing an increased number of foreigners, and a November 2003 poll reported that 33 percent of Japanese fear an increase in the number of foreign tourists could increase crime, and 92 percent associated more foreigners with more crime. Tokyo Governor Shintara Ishihara used the controversial word "sangokujin" to refer to foreigners in 2000; the word was used in a derogatory way to refer to Koreans or Chinese.

In June 2003, a Japanese family was murdered by two Chinese students for money; they were arrested after they returned to China, leading to calls for stepped up efforts to detect and remove illegal foreigners. Beginning April 1, 2004, Japan's new fiscal year, there will be stricter checks on foreign students seeking to enter Japan; especially from China-- 58,533 Chinese students were in Japan in 2002. Chinese were 47 percent of foreigners arrested for crimes, but foreigners are less than two percent of those arrested in Japan.

Japanese voters returned the Liberal Democrats to power in November 2003 elections. The party of "true reform" was expected to reduce farm subsidies, which would reduce the number of people working full time in farming, about 2.8 million. Japan imports about 60 percent of its food, some $35 billion a year, but only 10 percent of its annual rice consumption. If tariffs of up to 500 percent on rice were eliminated, there would be more food imports and fewer Japanese farmers.

Korea. Korea had a registration-amnesty for foreign workers that ended November 15, 2003, and was followed by stepped-up enforcement. A Foreign Workforce Policy Committee is to develop regulations for a new foreign worker program scheduled to come into force on August 17, 2004. It will allow migrants to change jobs up to three times during their three years in Korea.

Thousands of Korean-Chinese workers staged rallies in Seoul, including 2,500 who went on hunger strikes in eight churches after being fired by employers in order to avoid fines of up to 20 million won ($17,100) per unauthorized worker and two years in jail. There are an estimated 120,000 illegal migrants in Korea; about 500 a week were being rounded up in November-December.

Unauthorized foreigners in Korea for less than four years as of March 31, 2003 were allowed to register by October 31, 2003 and receive work permits to remain another year. 189,615 foreigners registered; some 37,000 did not. Another 65,000 foreigners believed to have been in Korea for four years or longer were supposed to leave by November 15, 2003 to avoid heavy fines and a bar on returning, but only 10,000 are thought to have left.

Instead of leaving, most foreigners went underground during what they hoped would be a short enforcement campaign. Many reported that they incurred heavy debts to get into Korea, and could not return home without savings.

Registered foreign workers will be covered by Korean labor laws when new regulations come into force in August 2004. For most of the registration period, migrants needed a guarantee from the employer that he would pay the worker's living expenses until departure. For the last several weeks of the registration period, Korean employers had only to pledge to report if registered foreign workers left their workplace. Many migrants are employed by agencies that send them to small and medium-sized enterprises, making it hard to determine the identity of their employers.

Starting in January 2004, migrant workers employed legally in the country are entitled to industrial accident insurance. Mandatory health insurance will be included in the legislation effective August 2004.

Many young Koreans want to emigrate, and 11,000 a year do so; 4,300 Koreans returned in 2002. The Emigration Development Corporation is one of several organizations that sold 4,000 "packages" to migrate to Canada on TV-shopping channels. For instance, applicants for the Canadian skilled worker program pay 6.2 million won to EDC if they had more than a year of work experience in high-demand occupations and want to move to Manitoba- applicants pay only after Canada accepts them as immigrants.

South Korea plans a new crackdown on illegal migrants because of several cases of SARS in Asia. The government plans to have those who arrive at local ports and airports from countries with suspected SARS to be checked by infrared scanners.

Hiroshi Matsubara, "Crime crackdown or xenophobia," Japan Times, December 31, 2004. Ahn Mi-Young, "Life On The Run - 'Illegals' Try To Survive," Inter Press Service, December 2, 2003. "Korean-Chinese workers protest immigration crackdown," Yonlap News, November 19, 2003. Byun Duk-kn, "Few illegal workers rounded up on first day of nationwide crackdown," Korea Times, November 17, 2003.