The Tokyo District Court on May 13 overturned a deportation order against a Filipino woman whose visa expired over two decades ago, ruling she had been trapped in Japan as a victim of human trafficking.
The woman first arrived in Japan in 2004 on a six-month visa to work as a dancer at a “Philippine pub” in Gunma Prefecture.
According to court documents, the bar owner confiscated the woman’s passport, told her she was in debt to the establishment, and demanded she perform sexual acts with customers.
She fled the bar and took refuge with her aunt but was nearly forced to marry a gang member.
Unable to renew her residency status, the woman began living out of a car with a Japanese man she was in a relationship with.
Her 17-year life in Japan as an undocumented resident ended in 2022, when she was arrested on suspicion of overstaying her visa and other charges. She was later convicted and ordered to leave Japan.
The district court’s ruling stated that the woman’s situation, in which she was nearly forced into prostitution, “resembles a typical case of human trafficking.”
The court said immigration authorities failed to conduct a thorough investigation, the woman “should have been protected as a victim of human trafficking,” and the deportation order “grossly lacks reasonableness by societal standards.”
The government had argued that the woman’s marriage to the man after her arrest was “built upon the illegal status of her overstay and is not worthy of legal protection.”
However, the court judged the marriage to be “a genuine relationship based on many years of living together.”
The court concluded the immigration authority’s order was illegal, and that deporting the woman would have a serious impact on the health of her already ailing husband.
