Nigeria Abroad
Nearly 15 years ago, a Nigerian woman Gloria Nkechi Onyekweli, fleeing alleged manhunt by our country’s security forces, arrived in Japan to seek a better life. Instead, she was subjected to repeated incarcerations and “mental torture” in the Asian country.
Onyekweli landed in Japan with a fake passport in 2006 after her fiancé, a member of the separatist group Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), was allegedly shot and killed by Nigerian security forces.
As a leader in the women wing of MASSOB, she heard that the officers were also looking for her. She went into hiding and, through a pimp, obtained a false Lesotho passport, which she used to flee to Japan.
“I was thinking of running far enough so that I could hide and forget about my nightmares,” she recently told a Japanese outlet.
But her reception in Tokyo was not friendly.
During days-long interrogation with Japanese immigration officers, she was drilled on end about why she chose Japan and not any other country or Britain, Nigeria’s colonialist.
Authorities detained her at Narita International Airport for two months and then took her to an immigration detention center for 10 months. She was then granted a temporary release. In her years there, she was detained for 30 months in total.
Japan issues refugee applicants with work permits within eight months of arrival. But Onyekweli had been honest with officials about her fake passport, which prompted them to classify her as “irregular.” She was therefore not allowed to work. She endured poverty and barely received governmental support, living on odd jobs and charity.
She also noticed that there were others like her struggling for asylum recognition in Japan. A friend was denied visa despite being married to a Japanese woman and fathering three children by her. Other refugees have died, including 17 during immigration detentions since 2007.
Human rights groups have always condemned Japan’s handling of refugees. The country is home to some of the wealthiest but is largely keeping its doors closed to those fleeing persecution. Last year, the number of asylum seekers in Japan stood at 3,936. It recognized just 51 as refugees. Immigrants make up just 1.6 percent of the Japanese population even as the country faces an aging populace.
Asylum seekers face arbitrary detention and mistreatment in Japan. Once, in late 2010, guards seized Onyekweli from her cell as she began banging on a table, angrily refusing to sleep over abuse. She was agitated and nervous after being in custody for a long time. The officers locked her up in another room, where they sat on her hands and placed a blanket over her face.
“I was begging for air,” she said. “I didn’t want to die in Japan.” She got injured.
Yet she tried to adapt: she learned Japanese well enough to read the newspaper and complete a course in elder care. She passed the exam, only to be barred from completing an exercise.
“Canada has severely under-employed long-term care homes in Japan,” said Canadian John R. Harris, who has lived in Japan for decades. “So here’s a woman who’s ready to go and do a thing that no Japanese wants to do, and yet they won’t allow her.” He calls it xenophobia.
Harris was with Onyekweli when she received a call 10 days before the Olympic opening ceremony from immigration officials, who warned her against leaving the house for the duration of the Games; they said she risked police harassment.
“The Japanese just believe that refugees are criminals or something,” Harris told the same Japanese outlet.
He was among a group of Canadians who took Onyekweli under their wings, first taking her to a community at St Alban’s Anglican Church in Tokyo, then helped her with the process of applying for refugee status in Canada.
Christian Howes, a Canadian active in the church choir, felt compelled to help Onyekweli: “It was very hard to see her constantly swept under the rug. She was here in an environment where she was told not to work – but was not told how to eat if you don’t work. And she had no healthcare.”
He formed a relationship with an Anglican church group in Kimberley, BC, Canada, which agreed to sponsor Onyekweli to their country. Canada granted her entry and, two days ago, she was set to leave Japan to start a new life in Canada, where she hopes to put her elder-care education to needed use.
As she prepared to check in her luggage Friday at the airport, she looked across to a cluster of Canadian athletes. They were Olympians – rowers, swimmers, and boxers – preparing to board their flight home from Narita International Airport. Someone gave her an Olympics pin. She was with John R. Harris, the Canadian who helped her raise money and navigate the complexities of a refugee application.
“This lady is going with you on the plane to start her new life in Canada,” he told the athletes. “This is her golden moment.”
She soon departed for Canada and will soon begin building a new life there.
Seeing Onyekweli with the athletes brought Harris some good feeling. “Canadians from start to finish came together to make this happen. And that makes me feel really good about our country,” he said. “Our treatment of refugees is one of the best things about us.”
This story first appeared in Nigeria Abroad
