Japan Press Weekly

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2017 March 29 - April 4 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

30% of foreign residents in Japan experience discriminatory remarks: gov’t survey

The Justice Ministry on March 31 made public the results of its first-ever survey on discriminatory practices that foreign residents in Japan suffered.

The survey which was carried out in November 2016 covers 18,500 foreign residents who are 18 years old or over and living in 37 cities in 16 prefectures including Gunma’s Ota City and Tokyo’s Minato Ward. The 37 cities were selected for the survey because they have a large number of non-Japanese residents.

According to the survey results, 30% of the respondents said that they experienced discriminatory remarks related to their nationality.

Of them, 53% said that the xenophobic remarks came from “someone who the respondents never met before”, 38% cited from “bosses or colleagues in the workplace or business connections”, and 19% noted from “neighbors”.

The survey also asked how the respondents felt when they saw, read, or heard about hate speech demonstrations in Japan. Their responses were: they felt annoyed (39%); they wondered what those people are demonstrating for (28%); and they become less fond of Japanese people and society (16%).

Among respondents who engaged in job-hunting activities and/or worked in Japan, 25% said that their job applications were rejected because of their nationality and 20% claimed that their wages are lower than those for Japanese co-workers doing the same job. In addition, 39% of those who searched for a place to live experienced being rejected as a tenant by a landlord.