ウティナン君の事例から考える外国人定着の問題
日経メディカル 2018/05/31 色平 哲郎(佐久総合病院)
2国間のEPA(経済連携協定)に基づく外国人看護師、介護士の受け入れが始まって10年が経った。2017年度までにインドネシア、フィリピン、そしてベトナムから看護師1203人、介護士3492人を受け入れている。
しかし、日本の国家試験合格者の数はガクンと下がる。看護師の場合、2018年には441人が受験し、合格したのは78人(合格率17.7%)。外国人を受け入れて、4~5年間、医療、介護の現場で働いてもらうものの、本人が国家試験に合格できず、帰国するというパターンが多くなっている。
この政策が導入された背景には、かつて比較的緩やかに運用していた興行ビザの問題があるとされる。20年近く前までは、興行ビザで入国した外国人が入国管理局に申請した仕事とは異なる職に就き、不法滞在化するケースが後を絶たなかった。そこで法務省は、興行ビザの運用を厳格化して受け入れ数を減らす一方で、EPAによる別枠を設けたといわれる。
20年の年月が経過し、以前のずさんな入管政策の問題は忘れられつつあるように見える。だが昨年末、それを思い起こさせる出来事があった。甲府市で暮らすウォン・ウティナン君の「在留特別許可」の取得を巡る報道だ。
ウティナン君は、2000年にタイ人の母と父の間に生まれた。両親は離別し、不法滞在のまま働く母と、長野県内の友人宅などを転々としながら暮らした。小学校には通わせてもらえず、テレビや漫画、街の看板を見ながら日本語を覚える。2011年に母子は甲府市に移り、母は支援団体にウティナン君の学習支援を相談。猛勉強が始まり、2013年に甲府市内の中学校(2年次)に編入した。
ウティナン君を支援する社会福祉法人「ぶどうの里」の山崎俊二理事長は、母親に「日本の学校に行かせるのはいいけれど、入管に出頭し、彼の国籍をちゃんと取ること」と伝えたという。ところが、2014年に母子が入管に出頭し、在留資格の審理を申請すると「強制退去」の処分を下された。山崎さんたちは「彼を日本に居させるのは私たち周りの大人の責任」と支援活動に力を入れる。
ウティナン君は、クラスメイトの前で「僕は在留資格がなくて退去強制命令が出た。だけど裁判に訴えてでも残りたい」と告白。日本しか知らず、日本で暮らし続けたいとの思いを訴えた。先生や同級生は、ウティナン君の境遇に涙し、支援を誓う。母子は東京地裁に処分の撤回を求めて提訴した。
しかし、結果は敗訴。ウティナン君は山梨の県立高校に進み、控訴するが、母は控訴を断念しタイに帰った。母子は引き裂かれ、控訴審でも敗れる。
一方でウティナン君を応援する署名は地域だけで1万5000筆集まり、カンパも200万円を超えた。2017年に最高裁への上告を取り下げ、入管に在留資格の再審査を請求。そして昨年末、1年間の「在留特別許可」が下りたのだった。
ウティナン君の事例は、ずさんな入管政策の影響が、日本で暮らす子どもの世代にも及んでいることを示している。「正規」のルートであるEPAの受け入れでも今後、看護師や介護福祉士の国家資格を取得し、就労する外国人本人やその次の世代が社会と共生していけるかが課題になるだろう。現状でも、EPAで受け入れ、国家資格を取得した人たちの3割以上は、帰国したり離職しているという。言葉の壁や子育てなどの問題に直面し、国内の職場から離職するケースが少なくないようだ
(2016年9月18日朝日新聞による)。
こうした課題は、外国人を受け入れる他の分野でも指摘されている。外国人とどう向き合っていくのか、医療・介護業界に限らず社会全体に問い掛けられている。
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OVER STORY The Nikkei Weekly Week Ending January 25, 1992
AIDS problem spreading to nation's remote rural areas
Local authorities blame prostitution in underworld-run bars
BY MICHAEL SHARI Special to The Nikkei Weekly
http://irohira.web.fc2.com/b78article92.htm
Until 10 months ago, Wanna was selling fresh vegetables
in northeastern Thailand.
Then she sold herself into what a Thai middleman told her
was a good deal.
Today, she and other "hostesses" serve peanuts and beer and
snuggle up to customers in "snack bars" in the quaint Japanese
resort town of Komoro.
"If I catch AIDS, I'll give it to as many men as I can,"
she says with a sarcastic laugh.
・・・
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Holding out a helping hand
"FOCUS"
the Nation 1993 May 8th Saturday
Irohira Tetsuro, a Japanese doctor who set up a special clinic to treat
Thai prostitues and labourers in Japan, recently visited Bangkok.
Pravit Rojanaphruk and Chatkaew Theankaew spoke with him
about the reasons behind his visit.
:::Irohira Teturo (left) thinking hard for a way out of expoitation.:::
'Only later did I learn that it was Yakuza gangsters (Japanese mafia)
who beat her until she was crippled.
If no doctor had taken this case seriously,
the public would never learn what really occurred'
Dressed in a white T-shirt, khaki trousers and sneakers,
with a fanny pack around his waist,
33-year old Irohira Tetsuro could pass as just another Japanese tourist
seeking sunshine and smiles in Thailand.
The relaxed-looking medical doctor from the prestigious Kyoto University,
his wife Kazumi and his 2-year-old son Taku may have preferred
spending more time on the beach sipping coconut juice,
but the family's five-day visit included some important business.
The business was so important that Tetsuro could hardly wait for the chance
to speak be it to academics, representatives of MPs sitting on the Labour
and Social Welfare Committee, Thailand Cultural Committee officials or any
other Thais who share his concern about a problem he has been considering
for years:
"How can we manage to care for Thai girls in Japan with HIV?
Or insane Thai prostitues?
Medically we can, but what then after they are discharged?"
the short-haired Tetsuro asked in broken English,
his voice full of determination.
"Can they continue working as a prostitute?
As a doctor I can not say 'yes' to them.
So we may have to try to send them back to Thailand
I don't mean that we don't need them, so go back to Thailand.
I don't mean that kind of thing, but we cannot take care of them
all after they are discharged.
They may be broke, insane or have cotracted HIV.
How can we solve this problem?
"This is the main purpose I came here for, " the emotional Tetsuro summarized.
Unlike most doctors in Japan who earn fat paychecks and lead comfortable
lives, Tetsuro spends part of his time working at a medical clinic set up
especially to treat foreign prostitutes, labourers and elderly Japanese
farmers at Saku General Hospital situated in a rural farming and
resort city in Nagano Prefecture.
He talks proudly of the non-profit medical services provided by the clinic
in this small city of 44,000- which he asked not be identified so it doesn't
gain notoriety and create a backlash by residents against foreigners-
located more than 200 kilometres northwest of Tokyo in a valley surrounded
by hills and mountains.
"Kyoto University Hospital is reserach-oriented.
Other private hospitals are profit-oriented, but Saku General Hospital is
neither for profit nor research- it's for rural Japanese farmers
and exploited foreigners," Tetsuro said.
In the city where the clinic is located, about 700 Thai girls make
their living by selling their bodies in numerous "snack bars",
a colloquial term referring to houses of prostitution in Japan,
Tetsuro said.
Another hundred Thai men are working there as labourers alongside
Koreans, Iranians, Chinese, Bangladeshis and Africans, he said.
Since October 1991, when Tetsuro established the clinic, he has
cared for more than 100 foreign patients- about 20 of them Thai
prostitutes, the doctor said.
One Thai girl he treated was only 15, he said.
He has a hard time convincing prostitutes who are HIV carriers
to come in for treatment because they fear deportation, he added.
"I tried whatever I could to reach out to owners of snack bars.
But the fact that Thai prostitutes are working and living in a small
city causes a lot of difficult situations for local residents,"
he explained.
After a drastic increase in the number of Thais working- most of
them illegally- in Japan in 1989 and 1990, the Japanese began
to realize that they were living among "strange neighbours", Tetsuro said.
"One day the Japanese woke up and realized that many people
around their neighbourhoods were Thais," he said.
"The langage was strange to them, and the lifestyle was different.
The foreigners' nightlife caused rumours and gossip to circulate
among husbands and youngsters.
It's typical in the Japanese countryside."
Of the handful of Thai prostitutes and labourers the doctor has treated,
some were infected Aids and others were suffering from the potentially
fatal tuberculosis, a disease that many Japanese doctors no longer
know how to treat because it's extinct in Japan, Tetsuro said.
The doctor did encounter one unusual but disturbing case in January.
On a cold winter day, the strong-willed doctor received a phone call
from Yamanashi Prefecture, 180 kilometres from Tokyo, and was told
that a Thai woman was suffering severe back pains and couldn't walk
because the lower part of her body was paralyzed.
The doctor who called Tetsuro said that because she had Aids she
couldn't go in for an operation and asked if Saku Central Hospital
could look after her.
"At the end I had to send back to her back in a wheelchair to Thailand,"
Tetsuro said.
"Only later did I learn that it was Yakuza gangsters (Japanese mafia)
who beat her until she was crippled.
If no doctor had taken this case seriously, the public would never
learn what really occurred."
Udom Sapito, the consul general at the Thai embassy in Tokyo,
described the situation in the city where Tetsuro works as "incredible"
in a January interview he gave to Saiyai, a journal of the Thai
Students' Association in Japan.
"There are about 40 sex-trade agents in that city (where Tetsuro has
his clinic)," Udom told Saiyai.
"About 20 Thai restaurants, supermarkets and snack bars are operated
by Thais.
The chance for female victims to run away is very little- it's incredible."
Work for these women starts at eight in the evening and goes on
until four in the morning, the diplomat said in the interview.
The girls are lured with promises of good financial prospects and
end up selling their bodies to repay the debt incurred for fake passports
and travel expenses from Thailand- an amount that is arbitrarily decided
by their pimps or the snack bar owners, he said.
About 40 per cent of these girls spend from seven months to one year
repaying their debts, Udom said.
For 75 per cent of them, the amount they pay averages about 3.5 million
to 4 million yen (roughly Bt700,000 to Bt800,000), he said.
Those who refuse to obey their mama san's command to sleep with clients
are first warned, then fined increasing amounts ranging from 100,000 yen
(Bt230,000) to 1 million yen(Bt230,000), Udom said.
Eventually, if they continue to infringe on the rules imposed upon them,
they are beaten, forced to take amphetamines or have their hair totally
shaved, he said.
"This brutality, can lead to another thing.
We all know that there are several cases of mama sans being killed,"
said the consul general, who himself physically rescued one girl only
after she had gone insane because of a forced overdose of amphetamines.
Last year 2,605 Thais- 2,192 of the women- who were living illegally
in Japan were sent back home, and each day about 15 to 50 women involved
in the sex industry come to seek help or refuge at the embassy in Tokyo,
Udom said.
In 1991, 47 Thais- 27 men and 20 women- were reported dead from various
causes including accident, suicide, murder, illness and overwork, he said.
Of the 70,000 Thais working among the 123 million Japanese in Japan,
about 50,000 of them are believed to be living in Japan illegally,
Udom said.
But Assoc Prof Surichai Wun'Gaeo, director of Chulalongkorn University's
Centre for Social Development Studies, said the number of Thais in Japan
could be as high as 100,000.
With more and more Thais flocking to Japan, Udom- who calls the sex trade
an international slave trade- said he's concerned about the image of Thai
women among the Japanese.
"I have many female friends who are government officials,
medical doctors and nurses.
They say they are very ashamed of being Thai because Japanese look at
all Thai women as if they are hookers," he lamented.
Tetsuro decided to become a doctor after an experience he had
about 10 years ago.
One winter day while he was strolling around Tokyo's Sanya district,
he was surprised to see young Japanese volunteers from a local Catholic
church offering food and blankets to poor labourers.
Seeing such an act of selflessness was an emotionally uplifting
experience for him, he said.
"At the beginning, I didn't want to be a doctor because a doctor's
society and class are very high and different from other people,"
he recalled.
"But finally, I decided that I wanted to be a doctor for labourers
and prostitutes."
He was admitted to Kyoto University in 1983, and it was during his years
of medical study that he also had the opportunity to travel abroad.
Among the countries he visited were the USSR, South Korea, Thailand,
China and the Philippines, and in the course of his travels he came
to realize that many kinds of social problems existed not just in
less affluent societies but in Japan as well, Tetsuro said.
Tetsuro graduated from medical school in 1990 and started work at Saku
General Hospital that same year.
He set up his clinic at the hospital in 1991 and worked there full time
until this past March when he transferred to Kyoto University Hospital
to further his medical studies.
His colleagues are now looking after the clinic for him,
and when an urgent situation arises they call him.
"I had a chance to solve many foreigners' plights as well as medically
treat them." he said.
"But all of it isn't solving problems at the root-
I can just alleviate them.
Thinking about it over and over again,
I wonder what is the root cause of all this?
What can we do about it?
"Foreigners who come to work in a place they don't really wish to suffer
a great deal.
Partly it's because they can't find peace and prosperity in their homeland.
They can't find stable jobs with a stable income back home.
That's why they chose to try their luck in Japan.
And there may be other reasons as well."
Udom believes the problems occur because young Thais crave
more and more money.
"Let me stress," he said,
"that the Thai mentality overtly stresses materialism."
The consul general, who's had to put up with threats from underground
Yakuza gangsters, pointed out in the Saiyai interview that not all Thai
women who come to Japan are dirt poor or uneducated.
"Some are daughters of government officials with university degrees
but came here because they can only earn a little working in Thailand,"
he said.
"The more they sell their bodies, the quicker they make money.
They came here because they can't live a life without luxuries."
Tetsuro, however, believes the problems are just one part of the exploitative
structure between northern (developed) and southern (undeveloped) countries.
"This is an exploitative interrelationship," he said.
"The relation between Tokyo and the countryside is similar to that
of Tokyo and Bangkok.
And Bangkok to the countryside is the same.
Valuable youngsters go the the northern countries or big cities
so they can get more money and goods.
"I want to tell Thai people that perhaps in five to 10 years, when the Thai
economy grows further, you have to form support groups for Burmese,
Laotians, Cambodian or Chinese working illegally in Thailand.
Ayutthaya was twice ruined by the Burmese, but you should help
and Burmese will be thankful to you.
You will overcome ethnic and racial barriers."
Tetsuro came to Thailand with the hope that his visit would alert Thais
to the problem in Japan and convince them of the need to do something.
He was still speaking as he prepared to leave for the airport.
"I wonder how we can solve all these problems?
As long as this problem still persists, I will keep on thinking about it."
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