I want to go back to Thailand and join my family. Thai Embassy officials called me many times for interviews. I asked them every time for a passport, but they cannot give me one because I have no nationality. Japanese immigration officials tell me that maybe I can go to Vietnam. But it’s the same. Without a nationality, I can’t get a passport. These cases illustrate how statelessness and illegal immigrant status intersect in forcible removal. A petition filed with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations in 1999 by three female human-trafficking victims had already signaled the emergence of this type of case in Japan.133 Clearly, the actual number of these cases is far greater than that brought to public notice, symbolically reflecting the nature of the problem of statelessness. What Happens to Unregistered Children? The substantial number of unregistered births due to fear of being exposed as illegal immigrants suggests disadvantages on the part of the mother and child. The mother’s state of health remains questionable without visits to the obstetrician’s office for regular checkups during pregnancy. The newborn child “cannot be vaccinated, without adequate medical care when they need it. They cannot attend school when they reach school age. These children are not growing in a protected and wholesome environment.”134 As Professor Lee et al. accurately relate, there are no nationality provisions in the Maternal and Child Health Law and Child Welfare Law, and these laws do not differentiate treatment according to residence status. As the Ministry of Health and Welfare made clear in October 1995, “Without the nationality limitations in the Maternal and Child Health and Child Welfare Laws, these laws do not differentiate treatment according to residence status.”135 However, as is the case with the Japanese child whose family registry is not fixed for lack of birth registry,136 children who are non-Japanese or whose Japanese nationality 133 Japan Federation of Bar Association, Report on Petition for Remedies concerning Human-trafficking Victims from Thailand, May 1999. 134 Lee and Stevens, supra note 117, p.51. 135 Ibid, p.55. 136 Sakamoto, supra note 120. 50