VZCZCXRO7329
PP RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHGH RUEHHM RUEHJO RUEHKW RUEHMA
RUEHPB RUEHPOD RUEHVC
DE RUEHKO #5646/01 3550544
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 210544Z DEC 07
FM AMEMBASSY TOKYO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0530
INFO RUCNARF/ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUCNCLC/CHILD LABOR COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHXI/LABOR COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUCNCRI/VIENNA CRIME COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHFK/AMCONSUL FUKUOKA PRIORITY 5122
RUEHNAG/AMCONSUL NAGOYA PRIORITY 3826
RUEHNH/AMCONSUL NAHA PRIORITY 7518
RUEHOK/AMCONSUL OSAKA KOBE PRIORITY 8787
RUEHKSO/AMCONSUL SAPPORO PRIORITY 5752
RHMFIUU/FBI WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAWJA/JUSTICE DEPT WASHDC PRIORITY
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 TOKYO 005646
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
EAP/J - MARC JACKSON, G/TIP - MARK TAYLOR, EAP/RSP - RUTH
KURZBAUER, L/LEI - SUSAN TORRES
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PHUM KCRM KWMN JA
SUBJECT: TIP: FINAL CLARIFICATION OF JAPAN'S ROADMAP TO
TIER 1
REF: A. TOKYO 3186
B. HANSEN + G/TIP + EAP/J + EAP/RSP + L/LEI EMAIL
C. TOKYO 4953
D. TOKYO 3955
E. TOKYO 3817
TOKYO 00005646 001.2 OF 004
1. This cable contains an action request. Please see
paragraph 4.
2. Japan has begun taking steps to follow the "Roadmap to
Tier 1" (Ref A), MOFA International Organized Crime Division
TIP Officer Hiroko Sasahara told us December 20. Embassy
Tokyo Political Officer delivered Ref B's "Clarification of
Tier 1 Roadmap" (full text in paragraph 5) to explain and
answer the Japanese government's Ref E concerns about the
"Roadmap to Tier 1." Sasahara described a number of Roadmap
Actions that the government is working on including securing
native-language counseling for victims, posting warnings
about child sex tourism in airports, and studying victim
identification procedures. She said that she will forward
the new document to the other members of Japan's anti-TIP
inter-ministerial committee.
3. Sasahara asked for specific examples of trafficking
crimes that the United States does not believe are
criminalized by Japanese law. Noting that there are 225
possible combinations of the Act, Means, and Purpose elements
trafficking in persons, Sasahara said that Ministry of
Justice officials believe that they have already provided
numerous examples of prosecuted trafficking cases, and would
like to know what specific crimes remain in doubt.
4. ACTION REQUEST: Please provide Post with specific
combinations of the Act, Means, and Purpose that the
Department doesn't believe are criminalized by Japanese law.
5. Begin paper text:
-------------------------------
Clarification of Tier 1 Roadmap
-------------------------------
--Summary--
On July 2, 2007, the U.S. Government delivered a roadmap for
meeting the Minimum Standards of the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act (TVPA) to the Japanese Government. To clarify
the Tier 1 Roadmap, and to answer the Japanese Government's
concerns over the roadmap, the United States presents the
following clarification:
--General Clarification--
The "Actions" of the Tier 1 Roadmap with their corresponding
suggestions for "best practices" were designed specifically
for Japan in order to provide the information necessary for
Japan to achieve a Tier 1 ranking in the TIP Report. They
are directly linked to the minimum standards in the U.S.
Trafficking Victims Protection Act (the "Act" or "TVPA"),
which the Department of State is required to apply in
assessing the anti-TIP efforts of every country with a
significant number of victims of severe forms of trafficking
in persons, as defined in the Act.
Although the specific action items identified by the United
States for a country to improve its Tier ranking in the TIP
Report may differ from country to country, the U.S.
Government has defined steps that all countries must take to
demonstrate compliance with the minimum standards. For
example, to achieve a Tier 1 ranking, all countries must
demonstrate a proactive and systematic effort to identify
victims of trafficking by law enforcement officials as well
as other front line responders. (An example of these
procedures can be found in UNODC's "Toolkit to Combat
Trafficking in Persons," starting on page 104:
www.unodc.org/pdf/Trafficking toolkit Oct06.pdf). For more
information about how Tier 1 countries demonstrate compliance
TOKYO 00005646 002.2 OF 004
with the minimum standards, please see the 2007 Trafficking
in Persons Report.
--Clarification of Action 1--
Please see the document: "Clarification of Action 1."
Please also note that to meet the minimum standards of the
TVPA, Japan must provide adequate sheltering services for
trafficking victims, both women and men. Victim-support NGOs
report that there are isolated cases of domestic trafficking
in Japanese men for employment in "Host Clubs" as well as
trafficking in foreign men for labor exploitation. Although
the U.S. Government has not confirmed these reports, they are
echoed by major Japanese newspapers. Japan's efforts to
complete Action 1 will be evaluated in the 2008 TIP Report by
whether the government provides adequate services to actual
victims of human trafficking only.
--Clarification of Action 2--
Minimum Standard 4, Criteria 2 of the TVPA examines whether
governments provide victims with "legal alternatives to their
removal to countries in which they would face retribution or
hardship." Trafficking victims do not qualify for social
welfare, and the residential status authorized by Japanese
law for victims of human trafficking prohibits them from
operating businesses or engaging in activities for which they
receive payment. Without the ability to support themselves
financially, victims have no alternative to repatriation,
even if they will face hardship or retribution.
Speedy repatriation is inevitable in Japan's current
protection policy, regardless of possible hardship or
retribution. The government automatically sends identified
victims of human trafficking to Women's Consulting Centers
(WCCs) for temporary protection, but WCC personnel
acknowledge that they accept victims with the understanding
that the victims will be repatriated. The average stay in a
WCC is two weeks. In addition, the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) conducts Japan's only
assessment of the consequences of repatriation, but IOM's
mandate is to prepare victims for repatriation. Even if a
victim will face hardship or retribution, IOM has no choice
but to repatriate.
Note: we learned from the International Organization for
Migration that there may have been a victim who after being
repatriated to her home country, was then re-trafficked into
Japan where she was deported as an illegal immigrant.
Neither IOM nor the Embassy was able to confirm the truth of
the report. To prevent cases like this from occurring, it is
critical for Japan to implement a program to assess the
consequences of repatriation before referring the case for
repatriation assistance, and to provide alternatives when
victims would face hardship or retribution if repatriated.
--Clarification of Action 3--
Please see the document: "Clarification of Action 3."
--Clarification of Action 4--
Minimum Standards 1-3 of the TVPA examine whether a country
prohibits and sufficiently penalizes all "severe forms of
trafficking in persons." The TVPA definition of human
trafficking can be broken into three elements:
--Element 1: The act - recruiting, harboring, transporting,
providing, or obtaining of a person
--Element 2: The means - the use of force, fraud, or
coercion, or where the victim is under 18 years old
--Element 3: The purpose - commercial sexual exploitation,
involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery
In order to establish that Japan's laws are comprehensive, we
asked for evidence that any combination of one of the above
TOKYO 00005646 003.2 OF 004
three elements is criminalized by Japanese law and is
punishable by sufficient penalties. We understand that
providing and obtaining a person through force for commercial
sexual exploitation is illegal in Japan, but it is not clear
to us whether Japanese law criminalizes other combinations of
the elements. For example, is it illegal to recruit a person
through fraud for debt bondage if the recruiter receives a
fee from the broker, but does not "sell" the person himself?
As requested by Ambassador Lagon during his July 2, 2007
meeting with Government of Japan officials in Tokyo, please
provide information on trafficking cases prosecuted in Japan
that show that Japan prohibits and sufficiently penalizes all
combinations of the three elements, including severe forms of
trafficking that do not involve "buying" or "selling" a
person.
--Clarification of Action 5--
The National Police Agency has been cooperative with the U.S.
Embassy in sharing information about the decrease in the
number of protected victims during the last year. The United
States requests continued cooperation from the Japanese
Government as we prepare to write the 2008 TIP Report.
Action 5 is related to Action 3, please also see the
document: "Clarification of Action 3." Formal training for
law enforcement officials in victim identification procedures
is also critical for a government to demonstrate that it
"vigorously investigates and prosecutes" trafficking in
persons.
--Clarification of Action 6--
Although we are aware that the Ministry of Justice has
announced that it will tighten guidelines governing the
Industrial Trainee and Technical Internship ("foreign
trainee") program, the United States maintains that the
foreign trainee program is too vulnerable to abuse and should
be eliminated. We have heard numerous reports of working
conditions that clearly meet the definition of trafficking in
persons. In every case that we reviewed, the exploited
worker was not classified as a victim of human trafficking
and did not have access to services provided for victims of
sex trafficking.
Note: These reports come from credible sources, including
shelters that provided housing to trainees after they
escaped, labor rights activists, and NGOs. It is Department
policy to protect the confidentiality of these meetings. The
U.S. Government did not independently verify the veracity of
the reports. Japan's efforts to complete Action 6 will be
evaluated in the 2008 TIP Report by whether proper victim
identification procedures are being used by official
personnel who have contact with foreign trainees and other
laborers, NOT by whether these procedures have a 100% success
rate.
Please see the document "Clarification of Action 3" for a
detailed explanation of victim identification procedures that
would meet the minimum standards of the TVPA.
--Clarification of Action 7--
We are aware of the arrest under a law with extraterritorial
application of 10 Japanese offenders during the last 7 years
who committed acts of child sexual abuse in foreign
countries. We have heard a report from an NGO in a Southeast
Asian nation that a Japanese Consular Officer assisted a
Japanese man in returning to Japan before he could be
prosecuted for engaging in sex with a minor child. The U.S.
Government was unable to verify the veracity of the report.
Japan's efforts to complete Action 7 will be evaluated in the
2008 TIP Report by whether the Japanese Government sends
periodic instructions to the National Police Agency and to
Japanese Embassies and Consulates instructing officials to
cooperate with foreign authorities in prosecuting possible
child sexual exploitation cases against Japanese nationals.
TOKYO 00005646 004.2 OF 004
--Clarification of Action 8--
Although the Japan Association of Travel Agents and the
Overseas Tour Operator Association adopted the "Code of
Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual
Exploitation from Travel and Tourism" in 2005, Japanese men
continue to be visibly prevalent in Southeast Asian
neighborhoods known for child prostitution. This information
comes both from reports by NGOs in Japan and in Southeast
Asia as well as from informal U.S. Government surveys.
Japan's efforts to complete Action 8 will be evaluated in the
2008 TIP Report by whether the government conducted a
widespread campaign to raise public awareness of the terrible
impact of child sex tourism and warn potential Japanese
offenders of prosecution under the extraterritorial
provisions of the child prostitution law. For example, these
warnings would be especially effective if prominently
displayed in airport departure lounges.
--Clarification of Action 9--
Please see the document explaining the U.S. position on child
pornography legislation in Japan.
End paper text.
DONOVAN