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“The Ainu people are an indigenous people who have lived in the northern part of the Japanese Archipelago, especially in Hokkaidō.” This clause is included in Article One of the New Ainu Policy, passed by the Japanese government in April 2019 with the aim of spreading information about Ainu and promoting Ainu culture. It has taken some 150 years since Japan took its first steps towards modern statehood to acknowledge this historical fact as a nation.
In the Meiji era (1868–1912), the government promoted policies of assimilation, and ever since, Ainu who also lived in northern Honshū, southern Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands before the modern era have faced discrimination and repression. The Former Aborigines Protection Act of 1899 was not abolished until 1997, when the government passed the Act on the Promotion of Ainu Culture. Ten years later, in 2007, the United Nations issued its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Now, over a decade later, a