Gloria Nkechi Onyekweli landed in Tokyo in 2006 with a fake passport in hand and a burning desire to be as far as possible from Nigeria, her home, where security forces shot her fiancé and had begun to hunt for her.
On Friday, she plans to board a plane for Canada, which has accepted her for resettlement after years of unsuccessful attempts to become a refugee in Japan – a country whose smiling welcome of Olympians stands in contrast to its treatment of people like Ms. Onyekweli.
Not a pretty story but Japan is still within its right to deny “refugees.”
