
In Japan, the week ending on December 10th each year (from December 4th to December 10th) is designated as "Human Rights Week" to promote the spirit and importance of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
"Respecting the human rights of foreigners" is also listed as one of the 17 annual emphasis points.
Amidst the spread of hate speech against foreigners and criticism from the U.S. Department of Defense that the technical intern training program is a hotbed of human trafficking,
I believe it is necessary to raise awareness within Japanese society about the human rights of foreigners.
Therefore, in conjunction with "Human Rights Week," APFS operated a "Foreigners' Human Rights Hotline" from December 8th (Monday) to 10th (Wednesday), 2014.
This project is positioned as part of the "Path to Hope Project," which has been running since June 2014.
We explored how we can protect the human rights of foreigners and build a society where all people, including foreigners, can have hope.
We have lawyers with extensive experience in advising foreigners on staff, and we have established a system where interpretation services are available in Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, and English.
The hotline received calls from people expressing anger over racial discrimination, concerns about not being able to access medical care, and complaints about housing discrimination stemming from unstable residency status.
This has once again highlighted the human rights issues that foreigners face in Japan.
While taking the phone, I sensed the presence of a Japanese society's gaze that somehow looks down on foreigners.
This experience served as an opportunity to reaffirm the difficulty and importance of treating everyone as an equal human being.
Volunteer staff played a vital role in this project.
We also heard some people say, "We don't want this to be a one-time thing; we'd like to run the hotline again."
I would definitely like to create another opportunity like this in the future.
*This project was made possible by a grant from the Oracle Volunteer Association Public Trust Fund.
Once again, I would like to express my gratitude for the grant.
v2.png)