Intergenerational Exploitation of Filipino Women and Their Japanese Filipino Children: “Born out of place” Babies as New Cheap Labor in Japan

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Japanese Filipino children as “born out of place” babies of migrant Filipino mothers and recent young migrant workers in Japan’s labor market. I present the unique position of Japanese Filipino children and their Filipino mothers as an example of intergenerational exploitation of migrants in Japanese society. The existence of Japanese Filipino children mirrors intersectional discrimination in Japanese society; they were born as a consequence of the inequality based on gender and ethnicity between the Philippines and Japan, then they were ignored by the Japanese state as “illegitimate” children, and now they their Filipino mothers have begun to be exploited as “unskilled labor” in Japan.