Good morning. I am Kenzo Tomonaga, the under secretary general of IMADR and a board member of Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute.

I am honored to have an opportunity to speak before you about the current situation of Buraku discrimination and challenges we face toward the elimination of discrimination. I have worked for the elimination of Buraku discrimination for the past 42 years and worked in close link with the UN human rights programs for the past 30 years.

In Japan, we have three million of Burakumin (Buraku people) mainly living in 6,000 Buraku neighborhoods throughout Japan. Burakumin have lived in discrimination in their daily life spheres including marriage, occupations, residential places and social association for at least 400 years.

The movement aiming at the elimination of discrimination started 87 years ago, on March 3, 1922 under the name of Levelers Association.

Thanks to the efforts made through the movement, August 1965, the government appointed advisory council came out with the conclusions stating that the state as well as the people are responsible to the solution of Buraku problem.

July 1969, the law on special measures for Dowa (Buraku ) problem was enacted and implemented for 33 years when it was terminated the end of March 2002.

As a result, the living environment of Buraku neighborhoods were drastically improved, while more Buraku children went to higher education than before and more Buraku people had job opportunities to work as government employees.

However, with the termination of the law on special measures in the end of March 2002, these special measures to uplift the life of Burakumin also ended. During that time, Japan started to face a serious social problem with the intensification of social and economic inequality driving many people into the poverty, and it is also hitting the life of Burakumin.

As a result, the life of Burakumin has deteriorated, and the understanding of Buraku problem among the general public has started to decline and manifestation of Buraku discrimination has increased.

In September 2006, a computer disk containing information on locations of the Buraku neighborhoods in different parts of the country was discovered at a private detective agency. It revealed the fact that discriminatory practices consistently continued in the civil life on the occasions of marriage, employment and transactions of properties.

At the same time we are disturbed with the fact that discriminatory messages are being freely distributed through postal mails, unanimous telephone calls or on the Internet, stating, for example, Kill all the Burakumin, or Exterminate all members of Buraku Liberation League.

Under these serious situations, we continue our struggle for the liberation of Buraku and discrimination against Buraku considering that the following initiatives are essential.

1. Promotion of the understanding of Buraku problem among the people, and raising their awareness of human rights. We were successful in our efforts to achieve the national law for the promotion of human rights education enacted in December 2000, and we are making good use of the law for this end
   
   
2. Enactment of a law prohibiting malicious manifestation of discrimination, and of a law under which a national human rights commission is created to work for effective remedies for victims of discrimination.
   
   
3. Promotion of building of a community with full of respect of human rights in order to improve the situations of Buraku community as well as the situations of people who are under similar situations similar to those of Burakumin.

In doing these initiatives, Buraku liberation movement has been fully aware of the importance of having good liaison with the UN human rights mechanisms and programs since the last half of 1970s, and involved itself into the initiatives listed below.

1. Promotion of covenants of international human rights and ICERD and strengthening of the implementation of the international laws at the national level.
   
   
2. Especially, the implementation of the ICERD is crucial. To be specific, to make the Japanese government observe the concluding observations made by the CERD stating that the word “descent” defined in Article 1 of the ICERD is applied to Buraku discrimination. Also, to make the government to observe the general comment XXIX (29) that the Committee made in August 2002.
   
   
3. The acceptance and effective use of the final report regarding discrimination based on work and descent made by the Special Rapporteurs of former Sub-Commission, namely Professor Yokota and Professor Chung by the Human Rights Council is very important.
   
   
4. The observation of the recommendations for the Japanese government made by Mr. Doeu-doeu Dien, the former Special Rapporteur on the contemporary form of racial discrimination, in his report of his official visit to Japan in July 2005.

Finally, I would like to conclude my presentation by expressing our commitment that we will make our best efforts in cooperation with you until we see that the DRC works very effectively for the elimination of discrimination based on work and descent at the international level. Thank you for your patience.