Modern Challenges of the Ainu

          The Ainu community continues to experience social and economic disadvantages, including discrimination in marriage, education, and employment, and restrictions on salmon fishing, their traditional livelihood. Although government bodies like the Ministry of Social Welfare, Health, and Employment have initiated programs to assist Ainu individuals in securing employment, the Japanese government has largely been hesitant to formally recognize the Ainu as an indigenous people and grant them additional rights, fearing it might conflict with Japan's constitutional principle of equality. Controversy surrounds governmental efforts to preserve Ainu culture, such as the construction of the Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony, which is intended to be a national center for Ainu culture coinciding with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. While some Ainu see this as beneficial, others argue that it is insufficient without a more comprehensive policy that elevates the Ainu's social, political, and cultural status. Noteworthy progress includes the return of Ainu human remains from Hokkaido University to their original village in July 2016 after a legal battle, and the acknowledgment by the Berlin Society of Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory that it possessed artifacts obtained unethically in the 19th century. This recognition led to the historic repatriation of Ainu remains to Japan, with a ceremonial transfer of a skull at the Japanese embassy in Berlin in July 2017.