Future Tasks of NGOs with the Nationality Issues Ritsuko Otani, ISSJ Supervisor

 

Nationality Issues

Last year, with the cooperation of the Child Guidance Centers and NGO, ISSJ carried out a survey on children with no nationality, foreign nationality or unregistered. The results showed that there were many cases where a child was unregistered or had no nationality due to lack of information. The examples are as follows;

• Cases where nationality acquisition process could not be started because the child's birth had not been registered;
  
• Cases where the guardian assumed that child obtained a nationality automatically with the alien registration.
• Cases where the parents thought the child obtained the same nationality of his/her father who was not married to the mother, by paternity acknowledgement.

Actually the child can obtain the father's nationality by foetal acknowledgement, but once born, the child cannot automatically obtain the father's nationality. Article 7 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that 'the child shall have the right to acquire nationality'. However, nationality can be given to a person by his/her home government only. The Nationality Law of Japan requires the family should be blood related (jus sanguinis)in principle, but if the child's parents are unknown or both of the child's parents are non-nationalities, the child born in Japan is given Japanese nationality. The procedures for acquisition of nationality depends on the individual countries, therefore the issues have to be handled after a thorough research.

 

 

The Roles of NGOs

The ISSJ survey showed that, out of those in the applicable ages and at home who are known to the private assistance organisations, only a third of children were in school (elementary and junior high school including special needs school). It is likely that nearly two thirds of the children who are in the age of compulsory education have not been registered, or because the parents are afraid of being caught as overstayers. It is deprivation of 'the child's right to education' and one of the issues that measures must be taken immediately. With those issues in the background, it can be said that the future roles of NGOs such as ISSJ that support parents and children, is to prevent family disintegration in unstable environments in different cultural society. Also for the benefit of the children under the residential care (particularly younger children), the protection of 'the child's right to grow up in the family' is a point to consider, in trying to help the child to stay with his or her parents, or if not possible place the child under intercountry adoption or foster care.

In future, it is necessary that the governmental agencies and NGOs should gain knowledge by sharing information, on measures to protect children from the state of having no nationality. Also if there is a part in the current Nationality Law that allows no solution for the issues, the agencies and organisations dealing with child's nationality issues, should advocate the necessity of some amendments in order to protect the child's right.s. We found out through the survey, the fact that there were people living in very unstable environments in Japan, among the foreign single-parent families, internationally married couples and families consisted of different nationalities. The new task for us living with people from different cultural backgrounds in the Japanese society, is to seriously consider what the governmental agencies and NGOs should do in response to the given circumstances.

 

 

Acquisition of Nationality with Assistance from ISSJ

A Japanese man telephoned ISSJ requesting our assistance to obtain passports for his two children. From our further conversation, it became clear that the natural mother of these children is a Filipina but has not married this Japanese man. She left the house one year ago, and her whereabouts is unknown. She registered the birth of the children at the municipal office in Japan, but did not report to the Philippine Embassy for fear of being found out to be an overstayer.

As the elder child has turned school age, the Japanese man went to the municipal office to seek advice about the necessary procedure for school attendance of the child but he was pointed out that the child has no passport or visa. Then he went to the Philippine Embassy to register the birth of the child for the purpose of obtaining a passport, but his application was rejected by reason of his non-marital status with the natural mother. He was told that the birth registration can be made only by the natural mother. Under the circumstances, he has contacted ISSJ for assistance for a register of birth and acquisition of status of residence of his children.

At first, we, ISSJ advertised the missing person in the newspapers and magazines for Filipinos in Japan. We also requested the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in the Philippines to visit and investigate the address written by the natural mother in the birth certificate. We waited for three months, but we got no reaction from the advertisement but a reply from DSWD that the natural mother is not living at the said address and her whereabouts is unknown. Based on these facts, an ISSJ social worker made a report to request the Philippine Embassy so that the father be able to register the birth of the children.

After several discussions, he could finally make birth registration of his children and recognize them as his own children at the Philippine Embassy. Then he went to the immigration bureau to make the necessary procedures for acquisition of status of residence for his children. He went there once a month for one year and his two children finally obtained status of residence which lead to an issuance of their passports from the Philippine Embassy.

  Case of Assistance for International Problems in Intercountry Adoption

Among the problems of intercountry adoption that ISSJ has assisted with since its beginning, there are cases where ISSJ has to solve the problem in relation to nationality. We have learned from various cases that with the increase of foreigners living in Japan there are many foreign nationals who are living in problematic situations which were unforeseeable before. Due to the current law and the different legal systems of various countries, solution to problems has become very difficult and is sometimes even impossible. Laws which originally should protect us sometimes become an obstacle which makes us feel helpless. For example, since the Japanese Nationality Law does not have a policy giving nationality based on the birthplace, people who were born and educated in Japan with Japanese culture are considered to be foreigners because they were born from foreign mothers.

A woman of Asian nationality delivered a baby called A. She is unmarried and is a minor. The natural father is a Japanese. The parents of the natural mother have been living in Japan for a long time and the report of their marriage was received in Japan. They have no problem in living in Japan though they did not report their marriage in their mother country.

The natural mother is the youngest of 4 siblings, and she has 3 elder brothers. She was the favorite of her parents, and they had great expectation for her. After graduation with excellent grade, she met the natural father and became pregnant. Both of them had no intention of marriage, and the natural mother said her pregnancy was beyond imagination, and that she was tempted by a devil. It was in the 7th month when she was aware of her pregnancy. The natural father run away from her when he knew she was pregnant, and his whereabouts is unknown. The mother of the natural mother wanted her to have an abortion as she thought her daughter becoming a single mother would be a big hindrance for her daughter's future. When she realized that abortion was impossible, the mother of the natural mother refused to accept the reality of the birth and birth registration. She insisted that her daughter was not pregnant and no child would be born. She was adamant about the reality and tried to deny the presence of her grandchild.

Despite the repeated persuasion by ISSJ social worker, the mother and her daughter refused the registration of the child A. They had no intention to name nor raise the child . They refused to respect the human rights of the child. The natural mother did not show her love for A, and left A in the hospital asking the child to be placed for adoption. The child was placed in a baby home through a Child Guidance Center.

While persuading the natural mother of the necessity of birth registration of A at the Embassy, we found out that the family register of the parents of the natural mother did not exist. We also found out that it is necessary to register the parents through the court of their mother country, and that for this purpose the collaboration of an attorney and the people in the mother country as witnesses (acquaintances, friends, neighbors, etc) is required. However, it is very difficult for the parents, who have been living for a long time in Japan as foreigners, to find collaborators for registration in their mother country. For those who have been living in Japan without any problem even without registration, it was useless to take time and expenses to register them only for their grandchild A.

ISSJ started the investigation into whether the intercountry adoption of children in such situation is possible. ISSJ has learned through collaboration of the concerned government authorities that it is possible for children to depart from Japan and enter the country of the adoptive parents without a passport after completion of adoption. It has been confirmed that when there is a country which accepts the child, a one way travel document will be issued by the International Red Cross for the child to leave Japan to enter the country of the adoptive parents as an immigrant after completion of adoption. Having no obstacle, ISSJ took action to entrust child A without registration to the adoptive parents. It was an uneasy decision for ISSJ though it was an inevitable decision in consideration of the future for A who has been rejected by A's natural mother and her parents.

Fortunately, the adoption was permitted by the Family Court and was completed. ISSJ wanted to let the adoptee A have a passport when leaving Japan with the adoptive parents, and thus ISSJ worked upon the concerned Embassy to obtain a passport for A. As a result, as an exceptional case, we prepared an independent family register for A, and a passport was issued for A. Immediately after arrival in the country of A's adoptive parents, a procedure for naturalization of A was made, and now A is living in the adoptive parents' country as its national.