On behalf of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), I am honored to have been invited to speak on this occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the International Social Service Japan (ISSJ).

Having been founded in the post World War II era, just like ISSJ, to cope with a specific group of people, in our case: the refugee, we, at UNHCR, just celebrated our 50th anniversary last year. Our main mandate is to provide international protection to those refugees who were denied the protection from their own country through provision of subsistence, medical, shelter, and other assistance and seek durable solution to their plight. As of 1/1/2002, about 20 million people are persons of concern to us in different parts of the world. In the pursuit of our work, cooperation with NGOs is most essential in the delivery of assistance to those 20 million people of concern to us.

Our partnership with ISSJ dates back a couple of decades to those days when we together successfully led the Japan's effort to help those Indochinese boatpeople settle in Japan. It was not easy given the environment of those days: the concept of accepting a few thousand Indochinese residents in our neighborhood was still very much foreign to the Japanese society. Today, a small number of refugees and asylum seekers manage to come to Japan seeking protection. Since Japan still lacks basic reception/assistance scheme for these people found in other developed countries, UNHCR together with NGOs like ISSJ have filled such gaps.

Afghanistan, Turkey, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Iran, Chad, Somalia, Pakistan, Cameroon, Myanmar, Iraq, India, Russia are examples of countries from where our refugees and asylum seekers come to Japan. Under our partnership agreement, ISSJ has provided social counseling and guidance in the broad areas of job-seeking, medical care, and shelter to those finding themselves in a often unfriendly foreign country. Starting this year, ISSJ gives counseling in detention centers to those refugees and asylum seekers who are deprived of freedom movement and placed on the verge of deportaton. The refugees and asylum seekers have once said to me, "ISSJ counselor is my Japanese 'mothers' who always has a place for me in her heart". Those in detention has also whispered to me, "Ms. So-and-so of ISSJ is the only window of hope, remembers me and comes to see me". ISSJ has admirable professional staff whose deep commitment in the assigned cases pushes them despite their sickness to visits different sections of Tokyo meeting them, looking for shelter or jobs.

I sincerely hope UNHCR's partnership with ISSJ be evermore strengthened in the coming years and beneficial not only to the refugees and asylum seekers but also to the wider-Japanese society through empowering refugees and encouraging their participation in the Japanese society.