A Tokyo court revoked the deportation order of a Filipino woman who resided illegally in Japan for 17 years, after recognizing her as a victim of human trafficking. She arrived in 2004 with a six-month visa to work at a club in Gunma, where the owner confiscated her passport and forced her to pay a fictitious debt of 60,000 euros through sexual relations with clients. She managed to escape, but was later forced to marry a yakuza member and subsequently lived with a Japanese citizen. Arrested in 2022, immigration authorities issued her deportation in 2023, but the court considered that the order ignored her status as a victim of sexual exploitation.
Passport blocking as a digital control mechanism in trafficking cases ⚖️
The confiscation of the passport, as occurred in this case, is a common tactic in trafficking networks that now finds parallels in the digital realm. Biometric verification systems and immigration control applications, such as those used in Japanese airports, could integrate alerts to detect forced document retention. However, current technology does not prevent an employer from manipulating the entry data of a temporary visa. The ruling suggests that immigration status tracking systems should be linked to reports of exploitation to prevent victims from being penalized as offenders.
Yakuza, debts, and a car: the recipe to avoid deportation 🚗
After escaping the club, the woman went from being a forced dancer to the wife of a yakuza, and then to living in a vehicle with a Japanese citizen. It seems the life plan in Japan involved changing companions every so often, but always with the same result: remaining undocumented. The court finally said enough. Perhaps the most surprising thing is not that it took 17 years to realize this, but that the club owner hasn't yet started a course for trafficking entrepreneurs.