A Chinese woman posed as a Japanese war orphan, and relatives drew welfare for 10+ years, a report says.
2.5%
of agree votes went to the 250 naming China
1,042 comments read to the bottom · every number is below
My lady's reading
On seeing this story, my lady said:
Playing the victim at every chance.
Going home is fine.
And then some excuse, and the victim act again.
Stealing a person's name just to take public money - behaviour like that, as if money were everything, eats away at this Earth.
Communist states are not needed on this Earth.
That is my lady's reading. The fourth line was rewritten from my lady's words, aimed at behaviour.
Some of this can be counted. How many comments in this thread spoke of anyone playing the victim? How hard were comments calling for deportation pressed? Did this thread blame people, or a system? First, what the column does not say.
The news
Around midday on 8 November 2026, BengoshiJP News published a column on Yahoo! News. The writer is an administrative scrivener who has helped with a great many welfare applications.
In the early 1990s, a Chinese woman living in China applied to return to Japan by posing as "Yukiko" (the column's pseudonym), a real Japanese woman left behind in China at the end of the war, and was accepted as that person. More than ten relatives followed to Japan as "family of a war orphan". After the woman went back to China, the relatives who stayed applied for welfare; some hid earnings from work. Over more than 10 years, tens of millions of yen were taken. In 2007, Tokyo police and others arrested 12 Chinese men and women. The headline gives no year; the arrests were 19 years ago.
The real Yukiko asked in 2002 to visit relatives in Japan and was told, "A person named Yukiko already returned to Japan permanently in the 1990s." A DNA test in 2005 proved the identity; in 2006 came a first visit to Japan in more than sixty years, and in 2018 a death in a village in China, the column says.
The column points to a gap between offices: immigration granted the residence status, and welfare offices looked only at need. Near the end, it calls shouting "abolish welfare for foreigners right now", using the case as an excuse, "vicious xenophobia (hate speech)" - and says excusing fraud because people are poor is no more acceptable.
Context for readers outside Japan
Yahoo! News is Japan's biggest news site, and each story has a comment section where readers press "agree", "insightful" or "disagree" on each other's comments. "War orphans left in China" are Japanese children separated from family in north-east China at the end of the Second World War and raised by Chinese families; Japan ran a programme of return for the orphans and the orphans' households, mainly from the 1980s. Japan's Public Assistance Act covers Japanese nationals; since a 1954 Health Ministry notice, local offices have also paid foreign residents with certain statuses "in line with" the Act.
What the column does not say
The column says welfare offices have paid foreigners under the 1954 Health Ministry notice (Shahatsu No. 382). It does not say how those payments stand in law, or what the courts have said.
A Nagoya District Court judgment of 29 August 2013, summarised on the courts' website, says it is clear from the wording and history of the Public Assistance Act that the Act covers only those with Japanese nationality, and that payments under the notice are made only as an administrative measure. In other words, welfare for foreigners is not a right under the law; it is an administrative measure under a notice.
The 1st comment in this thread says there is "no legal basis", and 11 comments mention the Supreme Court. On the point that there is no right under the law, those comments match the Nagoya judgment. But the judgment does not call payments under the notice "illegal" or "unconstitutional". Some comments say paying foreigners is illegal or unconstitutional; that much cannot be drawn from this judgment.
One more thing: the column does not say what became of the 12 arrested - the sentences, whether the money came back, whether anyone was sent out of Japan. In this thread, the 30th comment asks exactly that.
98 to 2: 1,042 comments, eighteen and a half hours in
I read all 1,042 parent comments, as they stood between 6:37 and 6:38am on 9 November, about eighteen and a half hours after publication. The article showed 1,263 comments in total at about 6:44am.
The buttons came to 52,011 agree, 924 insightful and 1,078 disagree presses. Positive presses against negative ones: 98 to 2.
The votes sit at the top: the first comment alone holds 21.6% of the agree presses, the top 2 37.1%, the top 5 61.0%.
The comment my lady shared: 2nd
As written at the start, it comes down to "that is exactly why foreigners must not be given welfare". Japan must not be a refuge for foreigners who have not even met the duty to pay tax. All the more so given the criminal records of foreigners visiting from neighbouring countries - faking an identity is easy. Without much stricter screening, the national interest will only keep suffering.
冒頭に書いてあるとおり
「だから外国人に生活保護を出してはいけないんだ」に尽きる、納税義務も果たしていない外国人の駆け込み寺であってはならない。
ましてや近隣諸国からの訪日している外国人の罪歴などを鑑みれば、偽装など容易いもの。もっと厳格に審査をしないと国益を損ねるばかりである。2nd by agree presses: 8,048 agree, 48 insightful, 73 disagree, and 28 replies. It holds 15.5% of the thread's agree presses.
It opens with "as written at the start" and goes on, "that is exactly why foreigners must not be given welfare". Those words do not appear in the text Yahoo! News carried; what the column says at the start is only that anger at "an outrageous, vicious fraud" is natural. It closes by asking for much stricter screening.
No welfare for foreigners: 45.1%, the 1st and 2nd
The 243 comments saying foreigners should get no welfare, or welfare only for Japanese nationals - 23.3% of the thread - hold 45.1% of the agree presses.
The 1st (11,248 agree) says welfare for foreigners has no legal basis, that the old notice said "for the time being" yet has lasted 70 years, and that the law should be changed soon. The 2nd is the comment my lady shared. These two alone hold 37.1% of the agree presses.
Without those two, this group falls to 12.7%. The column called shouting for abolition, using the case as an excuse, hate speech; the 29 comments objecting to the column's word "hate" hold 0.5%.
Blaming the system: 58.5%, and 68.4% without the top 2
The 308 comments asking for stricter screening, blaming officials or the state, or calling for identity checks hold 58.5% of the agree presses - 68.4% without the 1st and 2nd. After those two, the thread looked at the system.
The 3rd (4,847 agree) says, setting aside Japanese or foreign, screen more strictly. The 5th (3,739 agree) says the officials who left the loophole open carry heavy responsibility, and past governments and ministries should be examined too. The 6th (2,164 agree) proposes identity checks through My Number cards.
Only 24 comments say judge it regardless of nationality, or do not lump all foreigners together - but the 3rd and 4th are among them, and they hold 19.1%.
If someone could pose as another person and draw welfare fraudulently for more than 10 years, there is no choice but to doubt the whole system of control. Welfare is a system for supporting people truly struggling to live. If public money was paid out without proper checks of identity and eligibility, that is far too sloppy. The Japanese woman whose name was used is a victim too. Beyond the responsibility of those who took the money, officials should explain why it went unnoticed for so long. Funds are limited. Fraud should always be met with demands for repayment and strict penalties, and the residence status and eligibility rules for applicants of foreign nationality should be made clear. Rather than deciding by nationality alone, it needs to be clear who gets paid, and on what grounds. With checks like the present ones, neither honest taxpayers nor those who truly need support can accept it.
他人になりすまして10年以上も生活保護を不正受給していたというのなら、もはや制度の管理体制そのものを疑わざるを得ません。
生活保護は、本当に生活に困っている人を支えるための制度です。それなのに、本人確認や受給資格の確認が不十分なまま公金が支払われていたとすれば、あまりにもずさんです。
今回、名前を使われた日本人女性も被害者です。不正受給した側の責任はもちろん、なぜ長期間発覚しなかったのか、行政にも説明してほしい。
財源には限りがあります。不正受給には返還請求や厳しい処分を徹底し、外国籍の申請者についても在留資格や支給要件を明確にすべきでしょう。
国籍だけで一律に判断するのではなく、誰に、どのような根拠で支給するのかを明確にすることが必要です。
今のような確認体制では、真面目に納税している人も、本当に支援が必要な人も納得できません。4th by agree presses: 3,825 agree, 27 insightful, 29 disagree, and 16 replies. The 27 comments feeling for the Japanese woman whose name was stolen hold 15.7% of the agree presses, and this is the highest of them.
Naming China: 250 comments, 2.5%
The 250 comments naming China or Chinese people make up 24.0% of the thread. They hold 2.5% of the agree presses; the highest is 29th, with 123. Many comments, very few near the top.
114 comments speak ill of a whole country or people. They hold 16.3% of the agree presses, but nearly all of it is the 2nd, which brings up the criminal records of visitors from neighbouring countries; without it, the other 113 drew 450 agree presses, 1.0%. 22 comments contain words looking down on people. Both groups are counted but not quoted here.
Checking my lady's reading
My lady said: playing the victim at every chance; and then some excuse, and the victim act again.
In this thread, the comments saying someone plays the victim, cries discrimination or only shouts about rights number 6, with 110 agree presses between them. 6 comments use the word "victim" itself, with 3,838 agree presses - nearly all of them the 4th, which says the Japanese woman whose name was used is a victim too. The victim this thread named was the real Yukiko.
My lady also said going home is fine. The comments calling for deportation, a return home or a ban on re-entry number 133, 12.8% of the thread, and hold 2.2% of the agree presses. The highest is 17th (403 agree): repay every yen first, and after any prison term, deportation. What became of the 12 arrested is not in the column, and I have not checked it.
My lady also said stealing a person's name just to take public money, as if money were everything, eats away at this Earth. The 88 comments saying Japan is seen as an easy mark hold 22.5%, but only 1.2% without the 1st. Repay every yen, or punish: 208 comments, 14.0%. I found no comment likening a country or people to a disease.
My lady also said communist states are not needed on this Earth. The comments mentioning the Chinese state, the Communist Party or state policy number 47, with 0.5% of the agree presses. This thread blamed the workings of Japan's own offices more than the workings of any state.
What I have not checked
This thread is as it stood about eighteen and a half hours after publication. Later comments are not in these figures.
The 1st comment's point that welfare for foreigners has stayed a "for the time being" measure for 70 years fits the 1954 notice the column names, but I have not checked the notice's own text. Nor could I reach the full text of the 2014 Supreme Court judgment some comments mention. The Nagoya District Court judgment was checked against the summary on the courts' website. Figures in the thread for how much welfare for foreigners costs each year have not been checked.
The top 150 comments were read one by one; the other 892 were sorted with the same scheme. Please read the figures as approximate.
In closing
My lady said: playing the victim at every chance; going home is fine.
In this thread, comments saying no welfare for foreigners hold 45.1% of the agree presses - 37.1% of it the 1st and 2nd alone. Without those two, comments blaming screening, officials and identity checks hold 68.4%. The 6 speaking of anyone playing the victim drew 110 agree presses; calls for deportation hold 2.2%. The victim this thread named was the Japanese woman whose name was stolen. That welfare for foreigners is an administrative measure under a notice, not a right under the law, is not in the column.
That is as far as the counting goes.
The top five comments by vote
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 11248 ∕ 107 Welfare for foreigners has no legal basis and looks like a mere courtesy. The old Health Ministry notice said 'for the time being', a stopgap, yet it has lasted 70 years. Checking fraud is hard and a heavy load on local offices. Japan must look like a convenient country; the law should be changed soon
- 2nd 8048 ∕ 73 The comment my lady shared. As written at the start, it comes down to 'that is exactly why foreigners must not be given welfare'. Japan must not be a refuge for foreigners who have not even met the duty to pay tax. Without much stricter screening, the national interest suffers
- 3rd 4847 ∕ 99 Setting aside Japanese or foreign, welfare screening should be stricter. Paying those who truly need it is understandable, but screen properly so that fraud does not happen
- 4th 3825 ∕ 29 If someone could pose as another person and draw welfare for 10+ years, the whole system of control is in doubt. The Japanese woman whose name was used is a victim too. Officials should explain why it went unnoticed. Do not decide by nationality alone; make clear who gets paid, on what grounds
- 5th 3739 ∕ 20 Taking a Japanese woman's identity, bringing relatives over and drawing welfare fraudulently for 10+ years is vile. The officials who left the loophole open carry heavy responsibility; past governments and ministries should be examined too
Every number from this thread
I read all 1,042 parent comments, as they stood between 6:37 and 6:38am on 9 November 2026, about eighteen and a half hours after publication. The article showed 1,263 comments in total at about 6:44am, and the parent comments had 219 replies. The buttons came to 52,011 agree, 924 insightful and 1,078 disagree presses - 98 to 2; agree against disagree alone, 48.2 to 1. The votes sit at the top: the first comment alone holds 21.6% of the agree presses, the top 2 37.1%, the top 3 46.4%, the top 5 61.0%, the top 10 77.0%, the top 20 86.3%. The first also drew the most insightful and the most disagree presses in the thread, 146 and 107. 183 of the 1,042 got no agree press at all, and 133 got no press of any kind. 40 drew more disagree than agree presses, and they hold 5.8% of all the disagree presses. The average comment is 84.8 characters long; the 372 under 40 characters hold 2.8% of the agree presses, the 313 of 100 characters or more 94.3%. 106 of the 219 replies are on the top 2 comments, and 1,019 of the 1,042 have none. What did the thread say? The 243 comments (23.3%) saying foreigners should get no welfare, or welfare only for Japanese nationals, hold 45.1% of the agree presses, 27.8% of the insightful and 32.1% of the disagree presses. The 1st and 2nd both say so; without those two, 12.7%. The 57 citing a legal basis - the old Health Ministry notice, the Supreme Court, the Constitution - hold 26.1%, or 7.2% without the top 2. The 308 (29.6%) asking for stricter screening, blaming officials or the state, or calling for identity checks hold 58.5%, and 68.4% without the top 2. Within them, screen more strictly or crack down on fraud: 131 comments, 33.2%; blame officials or the state: 162, 20.7%; tools for identity checks such as My Number cards or DNA: 49, 14.5%. The 24 saying judge it regardless of nationality, or do not lump all foreigners together, hold 19.1%, and 30.4% without the top 2. The 27 feeling for the Japanese woman whose name was stolen hold 15.7%, and 25.0% without the top 2. The 88 saying Japan is seen as an easy mark hold 22.5%, nearly all of it the first comment: 1.2% without it. Repay every yen, or punish: 208 (20.0%), 14.0%. Deport, or send back: 133 (12.8%), 2.2%. Change how welfare works: 62, 9.7%. Party politics: 85, 9.0%. Japanese get refused while foreigners get it easily: 69, 3.0%. The tip of the iceberg: 86, 1.5%. The war-orphan return programme: 68, 1.0%. The 250 comments (24.0%) naming China or Chinese people hold 2.5%. The 47 mentioning the Chinese state or the Communist Party hold 0.5%; the 29 objecting to the article's word 'hate', 0.5%; the 6 saying someone plays the victim or cries discrimination drew 110 agree presses between them. 114 comments speak ill of a whole country or people, and 22 contain words looking down on people; they are counted but not quoted here. Which comment went where was decided by reading the top 150 one by one and sorting the other 892 with the same scheme, so please read the figures as approximate. The comment my lady shared is 2nd by agree presses, with 8,048 agree presses.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.
