THE SERIOUSNESS OF the gender violence against the victims of trafficking is becoming a major is sue in Japan, as it has been during the recent years in Europe. The following recommendations are addressed to all the participants of the NGO gathering in Hanoi, and through the NGO community, to all the States represented at the ASEM Conference. They are made by a group of NGOs in Japan presently actively involved in combating trafficking, an endeavor which cannot be limited to a single country in this age of globalization. It is unnecessary to stress the obvious fact that Japan and Europe constitute the two major destinations of the trafficking routes originating in South East Asia. We must not leave to the transnational trafficking network the advantage of having a well-coordinated joint strategy to exploit the women and children of South East Asia. It is crucial that we join forces in developing the necessary legal and social conditions to eliminate the problem.

Firstly, We wish to request the NGO community gathered in Hanoi, who has an experience in developing anti-trafficking legal mechanisms, to give us any available information on the strength and weakness of the legislations adopted by their governments. This includes especially the members of the EU, and the EU itself. The requested information is urgently needed because the Government of Japan has decided to ratify the Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and prepares legislative measures which do not take into due consideration the protection of the basic rights of the victims, focusing its attention only on the criminalization of the traffickers.

Unless we propose to thejapanese government and Diet an integral law against Trafficking supported by model case legislations protecting the rights and secunty of the victims, Japan will only modify its penal code in order to strengthen its surveillance and control mechanisms, refusing to develop any legislation to protect the victims of trafficking, who are most often undocumented, and will continue to be criminalized as “illegal migrants” lacking any claim to the protection of the State. They will continue to be harassed, not only by the transnational criminal organizations, but also by the police and immigration authorities whose increased seal to arrest criminals, if not enough successful, will motivate them to arrest more victims and treat them more harshly.