Travail de recherche/Working paper
| Résumé : | Border enforcement measures implemented by Japan in April 2020 in response to the spread of COVID-19 have had an impact on migrants. Even though Japan has implemented measures to resume international travel in October 2020, these were paused in December 2020. As a consequence, many migrants who planned to come to Japan for work, study or personal reasons were unable to do so with no clear vision about what is going to happen in the coming months. Through a snap online survey made between the 2nd and the 3rd of March 2021 (N=425), data were collected to better investigate the health, financial and trust impacts of travel limitations. Results from the study show major effects of border enforcement measures on mental health (with important level of stress for migrants) and, to a lesser extent, on physical health, lack of trust for the communication of the Japanese government and the Japanese administrations and a major impact on the financial situation of migrants not able to enter Japan. On the flip side, the survey shows up that 9 migrants out of 10 did not give up on willing to enter Japan and that trust in Japanese embassies and employers (for those planning to work in Japan) is high. The study raises six major policy points to discuss and emphasises the need to pay attention to the conditions of migrants who are not able to move to Japan for their job, school or partner. |
