ABSTRACT
In Japan, very few asylum seekers are recognized as refugees as the vast majority are rejected. In the year 2017, only 20 refugees were recognized out of 19,628 applications. The Japanese government defends its policy by describing most asylum seekers as abusers of the system and has introduced a strict policy toward them that involves getting rid of their rights to employment and/or their right to stay in Japan during the asylum application process. This chapter provides an overview of the Japanese government’s policy toward refugees and asylum seekers starting from the Indochina refugees in the 1970s. It also illustrates how exclusion of asylum seekers manifests on the ground by explaining the refugee status application procedure and the social conditions that each applicant must go through during the application, in addition to their treatment in the Japanese media.
