Tokyo, 24 March, /AJMEDIA/
Japan on Friday unveiled its guidelines on refugee recognition for the first time after growing calls at home and abroad for greater transparency.
Among the notable cases cited in the handbook for immigration officials is the possibility of granting refugee status if applicants are deemed at risk of persecution at home for identifying as a sexual minority.
The Immigration Services Agency of Japan compiled and published the guidelines in response to frequent criticism aimed at Japan for its history of accepting far fewer refugees — numbering just several dozen a year — than European countries and the United States.
The handbook, however, “does not expand the scope of recognition” already in use within immigration authorities, an agency official said, adding it is not meant to “increase the number of people granted refugee status.”
But the official added it is “well within the possibility” that the enunciation of the agency guidelines would help applications be organized more appropriately, leading to swifter granting of refugee status.
In 2021, Japan gave refugee status to 74 people, a record high since it started granting such status in 1982. But the number is far fewer than in European countries and the United States, where over 10,000 refugees are taken in annually.
The handbook, to be used to decide whether refugee status criteria are met, was compiled based on precedents and court judgments as well as documents by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and guidelines in other countries.
The 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Japan is a signatory, defines a refugee as “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion” and obliges member states to give them protection.
The handbook, which could be updated depending on new situations surrounding potential refugees, cites the possibility of recognizing fear of persecution in cases where sexual minorities are targeted with punishment or when women could face genital mutilation in their home countries due to local customs.
It also says that even if a single factor detrimental to an asylum seeker does not amount to fear of persecution at home, they could still be eligible for refugee status if multiple disadvantageous situations are taken into account.
Fear of persecution needs to be not an abstract danger but a “realistic one,” the handbook says. But it also notes that fear of persecution cannot be denied just because the asylum seeker is not individually identified by those who would persecute them.
The agency compiled the guidelines after an expert panel within the Justice Ministry in December 2014 proposed enhancing the transparency and credibility of its refugee recognition process. The agency also took into account the UNHCR’s view on the issue.
