TOKYO, Sept. 9 (UPI) — Japan’s foreign ministry said Tokyo would consider contributing assistance to refugees fleeing the Middle East, but strong anti-immigrant sentiment and low rates of refugee recognition makes resettlement in Japan unlikely.
Yasuhisa Kawamura, a spokesman for the ministry, said on Tuesday that “Japan, in collaboration with the international community including the United Nations, will consider what it can contribute,” to the refugee crisis, The Washington Post reported.
Tokyo has yet to offer resettlement support for refugees from Syria, Amnesty International said, but the Japan Association for Refugees has said three were granted refugee status in 2013. Japan instead has offered financial aid, and in January, during a visit to Egypt, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised $200 million in assistance to those fleeing Islamic State violence.
Critics in Japan have called for a more inclusive policy, but records show Japan accepted 11 out of 5,000 asylum seekers in 2014 — the lowest refugee recognition rate among industrialized countries.
Japan’s culture of homogeneity has often cast non-Japanese as outsiders, a perception that could have played a role in the case of Gloria Okafor Ifeoma, a Nigerian asylum seeker who spent 30 months in custody while her case was under review. She said Japanese officials gave the impression they just want refugees to leave.
In Japan, Japanese people of mixed heritage face significant obstacles toward acceptance, according to Ariana Miyamoto, who became the first half-Japanese woman to win the Miss Universe Japan title.
Miyamoto, who is African-American on her father’s side, told Al Jazeera America that growing up in Japan meant being bullied and called racial slurs. Children threw trash and refused to swim with her in the same pool, she said.
Mixed race people in Japan account for 3 percent of all births, but according to Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian studies at Temple University in Japan, the foreign population has doubled over the last 20 years.
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