Olympic Campaign in Japan
  

A lot of campaigns focusing on sportswear brands happen overseas, especially in Europe and North America. Japan has had almost no campaigning. We believe, however, that the current campaign succeeded in making people aware worldwide by way of mailing lists and magazines that the human rights of workers are being violated, which is a global issue.

"Japanese Network on Play Fair at the Olympics" was organized on June 4, 2004 by an advocating group and 21 individuals. Many of the advocates are women who belong to consumer groups, fair trade, labor unions and Christian groups. Yokohama Action Research Center acts as contact resource for the network, and some thousand persons received through mailing lists summarized information on the newsletter of Olympic Campaign.

The Japanese network sponsored on June 19, 2004 a lecture meeting on "the situation of female workers producing sporting goods, and world-spreading Olympic Campaign". The speaker was Mabel AU, the former coordinator of Committee for Asian Women. Most of the participants were women, who uttered their own opinions. The meeting was thus very impressive and interesting.
Oxfam Japan announced a report on Play Fair at the Olympic, Japanese edition, in mid-June, which was covered by the Asashi Shimbun, together with the Olympic campaign, dated on June 23, 2004. Asashi Shimbun is one of the leading papers in Japan, and many readers were informed about the Olympic campaign.

Some Japanese are not able to properly affix their signature in English. Oxfam Japan produced a system to enable people to do so in Japanese, and launched a signature-collecting campaign on the system. The organizations belonging to the Japanese Network have homepage linkages with the Oxfam Japan homepage.

Some students at Dokkyo University invited on July 21, 2004 Tono Haruhi, of the Yokohama Action Research Center, to give a lecture on "Play Fair at the Olympics and Sportswear and female workers". The students prepared posters and made badges to inform other students on the campus. The Asashi Shimbun mentioned the meeting as local news, which helped the organizers to get more than 50 participants although the students were supposed to take end term examinations. This has been the first time that the sweatshop issue was taken up for discussion in a Japanese university.

Tono Haruhi
Yokohama Action Research Center
Japan
"Japanese Network on Play Fair at the Olympics" was organized on June 4, 2004 by an advocating group and 21 individuals.

LINKS

see

Oxfam Japan
The Japanese network sponsored on June 19, 2004 a lecture meeting on "the situation of female workers producing sporting goods, and world-spreading Olympic Campaign"