Japan is one of around 50 countries in the world that allows only one nationality. In Asia, China and South Korea also impose such a law
When Yuki Shiraishi passes through immigration at Tokyo airport, she is hit with a wave of shame and embarrassment.
While her parents whizz through the line for Japanese nationals, she is stuck with the foreigners, surreptitiously trying to hide her Swiss passport.
Shiraishi is one of an estimated million citizens forced to give up their Japanese nationality when they became dual nationals.
The issue was thrust into the spotlight when tennis star Naomi Osaka won the US Open.
The 21-year-old has a Japanese mother, a Haitian father and was born in Japan but raised in the United States.
She has dual citizenship but will technically have to decide by her 22nd birthday which flag to play under, unless Japanese authorities turn a blind eye to a special case.
Shiraishi, now 34, is battling for change. With a group of others, she filed a suit this year against the Japanese government in a bid to reform what critics see as an antiquated and obsolete system.
She was born and raised in Switzerland, her parents working for the UN and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Shortly before she turned 16, she took her parents’ advice and obtained Swiss nationality to facilitate day-to-day administrative issues.
