SNA (Tokyo) — The coronavirus continues to rampage through society, but 2021 has begun. Unnoticed by some, several coronavirus crisis villages (sodan mura) sprang up around Japan’s capital city in recent weeks. The pandemic has devastated people’s livelihoods as well as public health.

The pain has been felt particularly keenly by those out of work, single mothers, those with precarious employment, and those running tiny business operations. With nobody to rely on, many of them welcomed the New Year shivering and alone. Such indigence existed before the latest crisis, but, as we all know by now, the pandemic has a nasty habit of exacerbating every problem.

Many aid and volunteer groups opened crisis villages over the New Years break when most government offices are closed. They passed out warm food, survival advice, and the message that you are not alone.

Some might see these crisis villages and experience a bit of déjà vu. A dozen years ago, we saw the rise of haken mura, or villages set up for the temp agency workers fired in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse. Even the term for firing such temp agency workers, haken giri, became a household word. These workers didn’t just lose their jobs. Many were evicted from their apartments and thrown out onto the streets.

At the turn of the year 2008 to 2009, a haken mura was set up in Hibiya Park. Workers had been indoctrinated to believe that precarious employment gave them new freedom and flexibility, but this rash of firings made them keenly aware that they were nothing more than fragile paper to be crumpled up and tossed in the bin after use. It’s already clear that today’s pandemic is a bigger and deeper crisis than the financial collapse of twelve years ago.

Aid groups managed to negotiate tenaciously enough to force some wards of Tokyo to open up their offices over the year-end break, enabling desperate people to apply for emergency welfare.

But the sodan mura are voluntary efforts with zero support from the national or local governments, so they are limited in what they can accomplish.

I myself participated on Saturday, January 2, as a staffer in the Turn-of-the-Year Corona Crisis Village (toshi-koshi shien korona higai sodan mura). The Labour Lawyers Association of Japan and kindred labor unions organized this event for three days in Shinjuku Ward’s Okubo Park.

Nearly three hundred people came for consultations over the three days, according to organizers. Particularly busy was the last day when I participated. I provided consultation from 10am until past 5pm, with no chance for lunch. I had to concentrate all my mental powers to try to address the horrific situations these people were facing. I felt a sort of cold shiver deep in my heart. Perhaps it was the stark realization that poverty is so widespread.

A diverse range of people came for consultations, but what they all had in common was that they are living on the edge of society’s safety nets.

One very tough 84-year-old man I met has lived under the Shinjuku rail overpass for three years without falling ill even once. A temp worker in his forties has been harassed countless times by his company and must commute two hours one way to work; and yet he cannot quit because he doesn’t want his nearly 80-year-old mother to have to worry about her hospital bills (Japanese residents over age 75 still must pay 10% out of pocket).

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party uses the slogan jijo→kyojo→kojo. This means: help yourself; help each other; then and only then look to the government for help. Suga said this publicly on last September 14. What he meant is that if you can do it yourself, then do it yourself; don’t depend on the government. Other LDP members have repeatedly suggested that citizens exercising their right to welfare should feel ashamed, in effect stigmatizing them.

Most of those who came for consultations felt this stigma keenly.

For example, the tough 84-year-old homeless man I mentioned above qualifies for welfare by any conceivable standard. And yet, even after two hours of discussions I was unable to convince him to apply for it. “I’ll be dead in a year or two anyway,” he told me. “It would be a waste to give someone like me welfare. Give my portion to younger folks.”

Apparently, he had actually applied for welfare in the past, but the civil servant at the counter treated him as a sub-human, wounding his dignity in a way that he cannot forget. As a result, he won’t apply for welfare again.

I tried my best to explain to him how welfare is a right, not an extravagance, and that he should apply while holding his head high. He just shook his head, thanked us graciously for the bento lunch, and disappeared into the crowded streets.

As I saw his diminutive form vanish into the pack, I couldn’t stop the tears streaming down my cheeks. I felt keenly how the national government’s stigma policy is having its intended effect, and not just for this proud old man. Many of the destitute who came to us insisted that they wanted to avoid welfare at all costs, or that they would be mortified if their family even found out they were seeking help of any kind.

One union comrade mumbled to me, “The national government spits out this elderly man who spent his life working for the country’s prosperity, and yet they prattle on about making sure the Olympics succeed. This is a lunatic country.”

I noticed there were more foreigners at the coronavirus crisis village than at the temp agency villages of 2008-2009. I spoke with Myanmarese, Ethiopian, and Bangladeshi asylum seekers who were driven to homelessness after their applications were rejected. They were ineligible for public support and also couldn’t find work.

I also met “Maria” (a pseudonym), who is a Filipina who had come to Japan as part of the national government’s National Strategic Special Zone program to use foreign workers for domestic servicing. Maria had signed an employment contract with a major Japanese corporation to work as a domestic servant.

Despite the three-year term on the contract, each year the company tested her Japanese language proficiency, domestic service skills, and more.

After working two years, last November the company told her she had failed her exam and that her contract would not be “renewed.” They fired her in December, but wanting to get a jump on job-hunting, she handed in her notice a couple of weeks early.

However, jobs are hard to come by these days. She lost her home and ended up living in a capsule hotel. When she came to us, she had ¥1,000 to her name.

She can write the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, but her Japanese comprehension is lacking. She has no acquaintances in Tokyo, making her situation very precarious.

Members of my union Tozen Union decided to provide some support to her. She happened to meet us, a group who might be able to help her a bit, but surely many foreigners are having their employment cut short just like Maria.

The national government’s system puts foreigners to work as domestic servants in order to reduce Japanese women’s housekeeping burdens. This is meant to encourage Japanese women to advance their careers in corporations. It’s not acceptable to treat foreign women as disposable tools in order to help Japanese women succeed. I would like to highlight Maria’s case to raise issues surrounding foreign domestic servants, something that has thus far received too little attention.

For me, the start of 2021 means a renewed commitment to survive the pandemic through solidarity that transcends age, gender, nationality and race. Dear readers, won’t you join me?

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