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Japan Hisabetsu Buraku
Despite Japan's claim of homogeneity, two Japanese
minority
groups can be identified. The largest is known as the
hisabetsu
buraku, "discriminated communities," descendants of
premodern
outcast hereditary occupational groups, such as butchers,
leatherworkers, and certain entertainers. Discrimination
against
these occupational groups arose historically because of
Buddhist
prohibitions against killing and Shinto notions of
pollution, as
well as governmental attempts at social control. During
the
Tokugawa period, such people were required to live in
special
buraku and, like the rest of the population, were
bound by
sumptuary laws based on the inheritance of social class.
The Meiji
government abolished must derogatory names applied to
these
discriminated communities in 1871, but the new laws had
little
effect on the social discrimination faced by the former
outcasts
and their descendants. The laws, however, did eliminate
the
economic monopoly they had over certain occupations.
Although members of these discriminated communities are
physically indistinguishable from other Japanese, they
often live
in urban ghettoes or in the traditional special hamlets in
rural
areas. Some attempt to pass as ordinary Japanese, but the
checks on
family background that are often part of marriage
arrangements and
employment applications make this difficult. Estimates of
their
number range from 2 million to 4 million, or about 2 to 3
percent
of the national population.
Ordinary Japanese claimed that membership in these
discriminated communities can be surmised from the
location of the
family home, occupation, dialect, or mannerisms and,
despite legal
equality, continued to discriminate against people they
surmised to
be members of this group. Past and current discrimination
had
resulted in lower educational attainment and socioeconomic
status
among hisabetsu buraku than among the majority of
Japanese.
Movements with objectives ranging from "liberation" to
encouraging
integration have tried over the years to change this
situation. As
early as 1922, leaders of the hisabetsu buraku
organized a
movement, the Levelers Association of Japan (Suiheisha),
to advance
their rights. After World War II, the National Committee
for
Burakumin Liberation was founded, changing its name to the
Burakumin Liberation League in the 1950s. The league, with
the
support of the socialist and communist parties, pressured
the
government into making important concessions in the late
1960s and
1970s. One concession was the passing of the Special
Measures Law
for Assimilation Projects, which provided financial aid
for the
discriminated communities. Another was the closing of
nineteenthcentury family registers, kept by the Ministry of Justice
for all
Japanese, which revealed the outcaste origins of families
and
individuals. These records could now be consulted only in
legal
cases, making it more difficult to identify or
discriminate against
members of the group. Even into the early 1990s, however,
discussion of the liberation of these discriminated
communities, or
even their existence, was taboo in public discussion. In
the late
1970s, the Sayama incident, which involved a murder
conviction of
a member of the discriminated communities based on
circumstantial
evidence, focused public attention on the problems of the
group. In
the 1980s, some educators and local governments,
particularly in
areas with relatively large hisabetsu buraku
populations,
began special education programs, which they hoped would
encourage
greater educational and economic success for young members
of the
group and decrease the discrimination they faced.
Data as of January 1994
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