An increasing number of asylum seekers — including sexual minorities and fathers living apart from their families — are looking to Japan as a place to seek refugee status. But such individuals often find the national immigration system, and the local population, unwilling to embrace them.
Since its founding in 1999, the nonprofit Japan Association for Refugees (JAR) has attempted to support asylum seekers by providing temporary shelters, telephone counseling services and free legal advice for those seeking official recognition as refugees.
"The number of applications from LGBT, or sexual minority individuals, has been gradually increasing," JAR coordinator Susumu Tada said. Many have come from African countries where discrimination against sexual minorities is rife and often violent, he added.