Filipino couple forced to leave daughter in Japan
Updated
In a heart-breaking decision, a Filipino couple facing deportation from Japan have decided to leave their 13-year old daughter behind.
Noriko Calderon was born in Japan and speaks only Japanese, and is in her second year of high school. The Japanese Immigration Bureau had given the teenager a harrowing choice - go with her parents back to their native Philippines where she's never lived, or stay in Japan without them. The case has upset many in Japan, with the country's tough immigration policies seemingly at odds with the reality of its shrinking population.
Presenter: Mark Willacy
Speakers: Noriko Calderon, Filipino-Japanese girl; Arlan Calderon, Noriko's Father; Eisuke Mori, Justice Minister
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MARK WILLACY: It was a last-ditch effort to keep her family together in Japan.
(Noriko Calderon speaks)
Wearing her navy school uniform, Noriko Calderon came to the Immigration Bureau in Tokyo to plead for her parents to be allowed to stay; but officials stood firm. The choice wasn't theirs but the 13-year-olds they said.
She could either go with her parents back to the Philippines where she'd never set foot or she could stay in Japan where she was born, without them.
It was a choice such a young girl could never make on her own.
"Noriko speaks only Japanese, and we don't want everything she's worked so hard for up until now to go to waste," says her father Arlan Calderon. "This was our only option, and this was our only choice" he says.
Arlan and Sarah Calderon came to Japan illegally a decade and a half ago - working everywhere from dry cleaners to demolition sites.
For the past few years they've been fighting a deportation order - applying for special permission to stay in Japan with their daughter.
The issue even went as high as the country's Justice Minister.
"The ministry has given due heed to the interests and rights to young Noriko" says the Minister Eisuke Mori, "and our decision to let her stay was a generous one," he says.
Noriko Calderon's parents have one month to leave the country so they've decided to put their 13-year-old daughter in the care of an aunt who also lives in Japan.
"I want to stay in Japan with my parents," says Noriko Calderon. "Although I am allowed to stay, I am not happy because I can't be with mum and dad. I've never lived apart from my parents and I'm very worried" she says.
Japan's tough stance on immigration is nothing new but the case of Noriko Calderon has aroused the interest of the United Nations.
The UN's Human Rights Council is now seeking more information about her case and major Japanese newspapers have urged the Government to reconsider.
Even the Nikkei Business Daily in an editorial called on the Prime Minister Taro Aso to let the family stay.
It's clear that the case of Noriko Calderon is making many in this country very uneasy.
