Japan Accepted 27 Refugees In 2015, Rejected 99 Percent Of Applicants

Japan accepted 27 refugees in the country last year, while rejecting 99 percent of the applicants who were seeking refuge in the East Asian country. According to its justice ministry, Japan reportedly received 7,586 refugee applications in 2015, which is 50 percent higher compared to 2014, Al Jazeera noted Sunday.

Reports revealed that most of these refugees came from Nepal with 1,768 applications, followed by 969 Indonesian applicants, 926 from Turkey, 808 from Myanmar, 572 from Vietnam and five applicants from Syria.

On the other hand, 27 of the refugees that were accepted include six applicants from Afghanistan, three from Syria, three from Ethiopia and three from Sri Lanka.

"There are many applicants who enter Japan with short-stay and other visas and repeatedly file refugee applications to live and work in Japan," a ministry official said, as noted by Asahi Shimbun.

RT noted Saturday that aside from the 27 accepted refugees, 79 individuals were also given special consent to stay in Japan.

Meanwhile, rights groups slammed Japan for only accepting a small number of refugee applicants. The groups said the country should put more effort into helping these refugees.

"In Germany, the number of applicants last year was 1.1 million, and about half of them are expected to stay," said Eri Ishikawa, the chair of the board for Japan Association for Refugees (JAR).

JAR said Japan should accept more applicants to boost its progress in recent years.

"We hope that [Japan] will hold discussions with UNHCR and NGOs and swiftly consider measures to certify refugees in line with international standards," JAR said.

Speaking last September at the United Nations General Assembly, Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe said there are a lot of things that need to be dealt with before this country could accept a large number of refugees.

"As an issue of demography, I would say that before accepting immigrants or refugees, we need to have more activities by women, by elderly people and we must raise [the] birthrate," he said. "There are many things that we should do before accepting immigrants."