Japan Times: NPO stretched thin aiding ill illegal aliens
Friendly Asians Home (Ajia Yuko no Ie), a nonprofit organization based in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, has been active since the 1960s in helping people from Southeast Asia facing difficulty in Japan. These days, it devotes most of its energy to helping people suffering from infectious diseases, including AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis...."Due to the financial difficulties of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, money for medical assistance for foreigners who have overstayed their visas has become extremely difficult to come by," FAH representative Yoshio Kimura said. "Because of this situation, more and more hospitals are refusing to treat such people, leading to a rise in deaths."
..."The present situation is such that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find people who may be suffering from infectious diseases," he said. "Since hospitals do not treat such people, it has also become difficult to determine the route of infection and stop its spread....On top of that, the clampdown by the Metropolitan Police Department and the Tokyo Immigration Bureau on over-stayers has become severe, and many people are being deported," he said. "This is disrupting the social framework under which foreigners helped their compatriots. It has become difficult for them to help compatriots who have fallen ill."
Most non-Japanese with AIDS are from Myanmar and Thailand, according to Kimura. The Myanmarese are mostly men, while the Thais are mostly female prostitutes, among whom AIDS has broken out relatively recently, he said. Kimura added that Chinese and South Koreans in Japan have begun to die of AIDS -- an indication that the disease is spreading rapidly here. HIV contracted from prostitutes is spreading among male over-stayers, who constitute the majority of the roughly 250,000 over-stayers in Japan, Kimura said. "Unless effective measures are taken, AIDS will spread to more people, including Japanese, thus causing devastating damage to communities," Kimura said, pointing out that Japan is the only developed country seeing an increase in the number of AIDS and tuberculosis cases.