The 2020 Olympics games is going on in Japan’s Tokyo. All the countries across the globe are cheering for their player from every corner of the world. Japan has been preparing for the Olympics since it had won the bid in 2013.
Under the radiating light of Olympic torch, there is dark and hefty shadow. Under the shadow, the homeless or the people who have migrated to the city in search of bread and butter or who are living in the wrong place, per the law of the land, are unobtrusively staying.
According to the myriad of reports, hundreds of poor have been evicted from their homes in Tokyo ahead of Olympics by the Metropolitan government and now theses people have nowhere to go.
The notice served to these people reads “Remove (your belongings) by July 21 because they are creating obstacles for road management”, The Asahi Shimbun reported.
According to the local reports, tents on street and cardboard houses were removed around the parks and train stations as part of the Olympics preparation.
The evicted people were advised by the officials to stay in less noticeable areas.
Despite of the enormous focus of the world media on Tokyo, the issue is still under reported. These people need to be seen with humanitarian lenses.
It is not the first time that these inhumane evictions are taking place. In 2010, the Delhi administration had also evicted or shifted the urban poor residing along the streets. As many as 100,000 families were compelled to relocate themselves as per the Reuters report.
In 2015, The International Olympic Committee, while inducting the Refugee Olympic Team to the 2016 Rio Olympics patted itself for putting a team sans national identity, without flag, the homeless— the Refugee Olympic Team under the scintillating torch of the Olympics. The IOC needs to show the same humane approach towards the people who are going to be affected by its quadrennial games across the globe.
The earlier editions of the games were also not untouched by the displacement menace. In 1988, more than seven lakh people removed from their homes in Seoul. China had side-tracked 1.5 million people and the resistors were given one year of “re-education through labour”.
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