Before you japa, beware illegal immigrants die in Japanese jails

Wishma Rathnayake, a migrant from Sri Lanka who was being held in Japan for overstaying her visa, has died in detention fuelling outrage in one of the world’s most hostile countries to immigrants.

Since 2007, 24 detainees have died according to an immigration rights group, Japan Lawyers Network for Refugees. These include a Nigerian man who died on a hunger strike in 2019 to protest three years of detention.

The man whose name was not disclosed had married a Japanese woman but subsequently divorced. He had refused to be deported because he had family in Japan.

At the time of his death, there were over 1,246 people were being detained at immigration facilities, with 681 of them being detained for more than 6 months, according to one human rights group.

Japan’s immigration detention centres hold people who have overstayed their visas or who have been ordered to be deported. Many people end up being detained for a long time if they refuse to be deported or if their home countries refuse to accept their return.

Against the backdrop of failed leadership in Nigeria and a dearth of opportunities for young people, leaving Nigeria has become an attractive option.

While there are many countries that have opened their doors to immigrants, Japan, the third-largest economy in the world isn’t one of them. The country settles less than 1 percent of applicants seeking asylum. Last year, it admitted just 47 people.

Some Nigerians fleeing harsh economic conditions in the country have been lured into slavery in the Middle East and North Africa. Some languish in detention centres, have been trafficked for sex, or forced to join drug rings and other criminal gangs.

The Sri Lankan woman Rathnayake, who died in the Japanese detention centre had come to the country with dreams of teaching English.

In 2017, she began studying Japanese at a school in Tokyo. About six months into her programme, she stopped as she was embroiled in a dispute with her Sri Lankan boyfriend.

She turned up at the police station months later, to seek protection from her abusive boyfriend who had threatened to exact revenge on her when she returned to Sri Lanka.

She said she wanted to go home but had less than $20 in her name. The Japanese authorities were more interested in her expired residence permit and hurled her into a detention centre in Nagoya, a few hours southwest of Tokyo, to await deportation.

For months, she begged to be sent home as her health deteriorated but the authorities said she was faking it. She never left the facility alive.

Japan runs one of the most opaque immigration systems in the world. Immigration officials are police, prosecutors, judges, and jailers.

Decisions are made in secret, those who overstay their visas or who have entered the country illegally can be held indefinitely, sometimes for years. And immigrants who file asylum claims are often treated badly.