Banned from working, asylum seekers are building Japan's roads and sewers

Source: Reuters

Even as authorities insist they leave, Kurdish migrants are working without permits on government projects. Japan’s strict immigration rules combined with a shrinking work population has spawned a black market in labor.

WARABI, Japan – Mazlum Balibay paves Japan’s roads, digs its sewers and lays its water pipes – all for a country that doesn’t want him.

Balibay, 24, is a Kurdish asylum seeker who fled to Japan more than eight years ago after he said his family was persecuted by Turkish security forces who tortured his father. He has since been on provisional release from immigration detention, which means he is barred from working while the immigration authorities consider his application for asylum and could be detained again at any time.

But the ban hasn’t stopped Balibay from providing the muscle on a slew of public works projects funded by a government that refers to people like him as “undesirable.”

“Japan bans us from working, but everyone knows that without foreigners this country’s in trouble,” said Balibay. “Construction jobs won’t get done. There aren’t enough workers and young Japanese can’t do these jobs. The government knows that better than anyone.”

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/japan-kurds/