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10 - Siera Holiday - Policy Paper Issue 1
10 - Siera Holiday - Policy Paper Issue 1
Ally Johnson
Humanities 10
8 March 2018
Policy Paper: Refugee Issue
In order to solve the global refugee crisis, the country of Japan proposes that each
country commit to either contributing funds to resettle refugees, based on their GDP, taking in
refugees based on their population density or some combination of the two.
For many years now, refugees have been a big issue across the world. People have
been fleeing due to ethnic, religious, or political reasons, wars, persecution, looking for work or
trying to avoid deportation. Japan is very particular about who they let into their country,
between 2011 and 2015 they let 7 refugees come to Japan, they let 28 refugees in, in 2016, and
3 refugees in 2017, in total Japan has only let about 700 people into their country. Kanae Doi,
Japan Director at Human Rights Watch says, “Japan remains closed to thousands of asylum
seekers, including Syrians, while those who do make it to Japan rarely have their refugee
status recognized. [...] While Japan is a strong Asian democracy, it is not showing global ethical
leadership on human rights.” Basically Japan’s refugee issue, is that they need to be more open
when looking through applications. I do think that they do just want to keep peace in their
country and so being really careful about who they let into their country is just precautionary.
Japan has never been famous for its acceptance of refugees & in total, they have not let
very many people in at all. They think they are making up for it in paying the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a lot of money, but this generous financial action
has not translated to a welcome for refugee. Not only is Japan iffy about letting in refugees,
Mina Pollmann from The Diplomat says, “In fact, Japan’s Ministry of Justice is considering
changes that could potentially make it harder for applicants to seek asylum in Japan.” she also
mentions, “Measures include deporting failed applicants, curbs on repeat applications, and
prescreening new asylum seekers.” This article also says how by the end of the decade, Japan
is going to need more people . They will need more labor work and letting in refugees, could be
something that will really help out Japan. I think that in the long run, Japan just has a very strong
community, and they think that letting in too many refugees will mess that up, even though it will
benefit them in the end.
Clearly, refugees are a worldwide issue and there needs to be a solution that will help so
that every country will be contributing their fair share. I propose that they can choose from two
options. The first option is if the country can not take refugees due to population density, they
will pay a percentage of money to help other countries house refugees, using Japan as an
example. There is $80 trillion in the world and every country has a percentage of that, Japan
possesses 13.7% of that number. There are 60 million refugees in the world and it takes
$15,000 to settle one refugee. In total that is $90,000,000,000 (90 billion) to settle all of the
refugees. So because Japan has 13.7% of the worlds money, they would have to contribute
13.7% of the money to the UN needed for refugees. That money would then be given to the
country who takes the refugees and distributed ($15,000 each) between all of the refugees to
help them start a life.
The second option is if the country can not pay the money needed for refugees, but does
have the space (population wise) to house refugees. The money paid by other countries goes
towards those countries and then distributed like I said above. So basically countries that have a
lower population density will take more refugees but will not have to pay for it because of
countries with high population and countries that have large populations will pay money so that
refugees can be housed in other countries.
WORK CITED:
Japan: Improve Migrant Treatment, Accept Refugees . Human Rights Watch, 12 Jan.
2017, 10:00, www.hrw.org/news/2017/01/12/japanimprovemigranttreatmentacceptrefugees .
Pollmann, Mina. Japan's Role in the Refugee Crisis . The Diplomat, 11 Sept. 2015,
thediplomat.com/2015/09/japansroleintherefugeecrisis/.
Ekin, Annette. Lives in Limbo: Why Japan Accepts so Few Refugees . News Grid, 20
June 2017,
www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/liveslimbojapanacceptsrefugees17060812231
2650.html .
“Economy of Japan.” Wikipedia , Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Mar. 2018,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Japan.
Dubbudu, Rakesh. How Much Do Various Countries Contribute to the UN Budget?
FACTLY, 4 Jan. 2017, factly.in/unitednationsbudgetcontributionsbymembercountries/.