Message of the Commission

For The 93th World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2007

Do you know about this treaty?

“International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant 　Workers and Members of Their Families”

Let us urge the Japanese government to ratify this international treaty!

　One of the features of the present age is the fact that as globalization advances people are on the move all over the world. Among the approximately 200,000,000 people, who for various reasons have left their homes and native country to immigrate to a place that they have never seen before, there are approximately 100,000,000 refugees. These refugees and migrants are not only adults. Please remember that there are many children who are living as refugees, migrants and people on the move.
　There is a treaty, the “International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families” which was adopted by the United Nations. Japan has still not ratified this treaty. I would like to introduce some of the contents of this treaty and tell you a little about conditions in Japan.

Article 29: “Each child of a migrant worker shall have the right to a name, to registration of birth and to a nationality.”
     Children, after being born into this world, must first be guaranteed that their birth will be registered. Not being able to register their births, denies their presence in society, and completely ignores their very existence itself. In addition, birth registration also formally gives them a name. There are children in Japan, whose existence has never been recognized, that are living with just a “nickname”. Furthermore, there are many children in Japan, who even if they have a foreigner’s registration card, do not have a nationality. They are in other words, “stateless”.

Article 30: “Each child of a migrant worker shall have the basic right of access to education on the basis of equality of treatment with nationals of the State concerned. Access to…school shall not be refused or limited by reason of the irregular situation with respect to stay or employment of either parent or by reason of the irregularity of the child's stay in the State of employment.”
     I think that everyone has probably heard that among the children of parents who have overstayed their visa there are children who have been denied the right to attend school and who are just staying at their homes. The right to receive an education at an important time of growth for these children has been taken away from them. It is not possible for us to just avert our attention from the fact that in this way, these children who will be bearing the burdens of the next generation have been denied their rights.

Article 28: “Migrant workers and members of their families shall have the right to receive any medical care that is urgently required for the preservation of their life or the avoidance of irreparable harm to their health on the basis of equality of treatment with nationals of the State concerned. Such emergency medical care shall not be refused them by reason of any irregularity with regard to stay or employment.”
     There are many children who are exposed to dangerous life threatening situations at the time of their births. There have been cases of mothers in the last stage of pregnancy, who because they had overstayed their visa, after having either been turned away at the door or shifted around from one hospital to another, were refused childbirth at a hospital. There would not be enough time to enumerate all the cases that are problems which result from our lack of humanity, but to give a couple of further examples: there have been instances of children born with handicaps that were just discharged without having received sufficient medical care and instances where no birth certificate was issued because childbirth expenses had not been paid. 

     This earth is home for all people. This treaty will guarantee that all migrant workers and their families, who live and work in Japan, will be able to maintain their human dignity and have the right to bring up their children, even if a person is assumed to have overstayed their visa. Our commission, demands that the Japanese government, as quickly as possible, ratify this United Nations treaty. Furthermore, in order to ratify this treaty, we demand that a “Basic Law for Foreign Residents” also be enacted.

     We ask all of you as well, to take an active interest in this treaty and the basic law for foreign residents. Even now, please pray for the children who are being exposed to dangerous life threatening situations and the problems which result from our lack of humanity.

September 23, 2007
Catholic Commission of Japan for Migrants, Refugees and People on the Move
Chairperson: Bishop Tani Daiji

English text of the TREATY: http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cmw.htm
English explanation of a BASIC LAW:
(1-1-2 Enacting the Fundamental Law of the Human Rights of Foreign Nationals),
http://www.jca.apc.org/migrant-net/English/proposal/proposal_01_e.html