by Farrah Hasnain

Bio: Farrah Hasnain is currently in her fifth year of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme and is from Washington, DC. She is an Assistant Language Teacher at a senior high school in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka. Her research interests include the ethnography of immigrant and minority communities in Japan and the US as well as English team-teaching methodology in Japanese high schools. 

1.5. (If the assailant or person involved is a student) Inform the homeroom teacher, club supervisor, and/or head teacher about the student’s behavior. They will usually reprimand the student accordingly, even if the JTE does not discipline the student.

2. Talk to your supervisor/tantou

3. Talk to your PA/CA (JET), or ALT supervisor

4. Contact the BOE

5. If they refuse to get involved, you may contact General Union Japan.

Sexual Harassment/Assault (outside of work)
“Chikan” (groping) is a common problem in Japan. If you get chikaned and want to file a report, call the police ASAP.

Even if you may not know enough Japanese, they can collect evidence and file it immediately. Record the time/date, the sequence of events, and the appearance of the assailant as precise as you can. Some of the officers know some English, or you can use Google Translate for some terms. You can also contact your PA or CA, for advice.

Sexual Harassment/Assault (at work/work functions)
Some coworkers in Japanese workplaces can be entitled. You might hear of all sorts of things, from coworkers saying inappropriate things to stalking.

You can also post anonymously on some expat/JET Facebook groups to seek help (you don’t have to be a JET to join some of them). This also goes for reporting cases outside of work sometimes. Some schools also have a harassment committee among the faculty.

Power Harassment
In Japan, “power harassment” is when older/higher-ranked coworkers abuse their authority. More info here.

Feedback
Here are the strategies/ideas that ALTs have expressed in the surveys and interviews. The majority of the respondents confirmed that a set system needs to be in place for ALTs, and that ALTs should receive more thorough and explicit training related to workplace harassment.

Stakeholders: Japanese Workplaces and Obstacles with Reporting

Both the ALT’s side and the Japanese staff’s/employer’s side need awareness and accountability with these issues. It can’t only be on the ALT. There is sensitivity training or guidelines for Japanese staff members at a lot of schools but they’re not enforced. The ALTs are afraid of reporting because they’re worried about losing their contract or making the problem worse at their school. For example, JET contracts have byoukyuu (sick leave) but it’s not required in lots of Japanese companies. Even though JET contracts clearly have sick leave, schools tend to prevent us from taking it. If you contact CLAIR, you’ll be told to go to your BOE. If you go to your BOE, you are told to compromise with your school…it’s a cycle of “ask someone else”. If it’s like this with just sick leave and overtime, imagine what it’s like for someone reporting sexual assault. You’ll get the same response. If you really want to have a realistic solution about solving something like harassment, you have to start with the ones who have power. Otherwise, it’s one-sided and there’s no solution. JET and dispatch companies can do so much but it’s up to the BOE who makes the final call.

Japanese University Policies & Existing Laws

There are different issues that come up when you work here. Sometimes, issues are caused by a lack of maturity, respect, or professionalism by the ALT. But often it’s systemic, pitting the ALT against a Japanese system. Japan has a more hierarchical structure that’s more vulnerable to harassment, ranked by the years you’ve worked for the company, your age, senpai/kouhai dynamics, and more. It’s a system that is open to harassment.

Does JET have a specific procedure on what to do? If it were me I’d do the following:

• Recognize what’s a cultural issue/communication issue and what’s harassment

• What constitutes harassment?

• A series of steps to confront it: knowing who to talk to, what to do, and how to keep track of the case

Basically, every university would officially have some sort of procedure in place. Whether or not people pay attention is a different matter, but they at least have a procedure set officially. It’s governmentally required. We have FD (Faculty Development). An FD session is basically a training session for faculty. The topic could be harassment, active learning, how to be educators, etc. The idea is that continuing the development of the faculty makes continuous improvement. It’s reasonable to ask if the BOEs are consistently training full-time permanent employees, and if they are given training related to harassment. ALTs should be given a copy of policies or suggestions on harassment from the BOE. The Ministry of Education has a lot of set policies for BOEs and universities, but you need to put in some effort to follow them. For example, every university course has specific objectives and curricula but you may not have read them. Harassment policies are something similar. They have to have a procedure, write it down, define it, and it’s probably sitting in the books. But it exists.

–          A note from ALT training online’s David Hayter

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