City refused maternal aid for pregnant foreigner overstaying visa+

TOKYO, July 30 Kyodo -
The city of Suzuka in Mie Prefecture refused to accept a pregnancy report in
March by an Indonesian woman who had overstayed her visa and did not issue her
with a maternal health handbook until after she gave birth in July, sources
familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The act was based on the city's decision last October not to accept such
reports from illegal immigrants or issue them with maternal health books, which
are handed out along with complimentary tickets for receiving maternity
checkups.
According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, however, local
municipalities usually hand out the maternal health books to illegal immigrants
from a humanitarian standpoint. An official at the ministry's maternal health
division said, ''We did not realize there have been such cases (as Suzuka's).''
Meanwhile, an official with the city's health promotion division said, ''Our
awareness level (regarding the issue) was not good enough and we want to
correct the policy as soon as possible.''
The city has been distributing free checkup vouchers to expectant mothers along
with the maternal health books but decided not to provide them for overstaying
foreigners because ''the free vouchers are equivalent to money,'' the city
official said.
Thus the city implemented a policy of checking foreign applicants' visa status
when receiving pregnancy reports, and prohibiting issuance of the health book
and free vouchers if their visas have expired.
According to the sources, the 30-year-old Indonesian woman who entered Japan in
2007 on a short-term visa started to date a Japanese man and became pregnant
after her visa expired. She initially paid her own for the checkups but stopped
seeing the doctor as it cost over 10,000 yen per visit, the sources said.
The city said it will resume providing maternity pocketbooks to foreign women
staying beyond their visa expiry date and will also study whether it should
give them the free checkup vouchers as well.
==Kyodo