SHE is only 13, but she has to make a choice no child should ever be forced to make.

Your parents are going to be deported back to their country.

But you were born in another country.

Do you go with them, or stay in the place where you were born and have all your friends?

Noriko Calderon was born in Japan.

Her parents, Arlan and Sarah Calderon, are from the Philippines.

They entered Japan illegally in the early 1990s using fake passports, married there and had Noriko.

CNN reported that Mr Calderon found a stable job working for a construction company.

Noriko grew up Japanese, immersing herself in its culture, attending school and never learning her parents' native language.

Like many Tokyo girls her age, she loves hip-hop and hopes to be a dancer or a teacher at a dance school.

But in 2006, her parents were found out.

Arrested

Japanese immigration authorities arrested her mother and her parents decided to fight Japan's notoriously rigid immigration laws.

Since then, they have argued their case all the way to the country's High Court, saying Mr Calderon is gainfully employed and their daughter only speaks Japanese.

They lost their case and Japan ordered them to be deported back to the Philippines.

Japan's Immigration Bureau told CNN the couple's illegal presence in the country was against its immigration laws.

But when it came to Noriko, the government gave the girl a choice: her country or her parents.

Noriko chose Japan as she said it was her homeland.

On 13 Apr, her parents said their final goodbyes to her at Narita International Airport.

The Mail Online reported that the next time she sees them will be when she turns 18, as the Calderons will not be allowed back into Japan for five years.

She said: 'Until I'm an adult, I need my parents. But Japan is my homeland.

'Leaving Japan, the country where I was born and raised, is not something I could ever imagine.'

'I hope I can show my parents, the next time I see them, that I have done my best.'

She will live with an aunt, and be allowed to stay in Japan under a visa that the government will reassess yearly.

CNN reported that activists claim Japan's notoriously rigid immigration laws violate human rights.

According to lawyers, about 500 families are in the same situation. They accuse Japan of not respecting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Noriko's parents said her life would be better in Japan, compared to what they were going back to - one of poverty in a farming community.

Her father said: 'We won't be there when she needs us the most.

'She has to protect herself on her own. I'm so sorry about that.'

Mr Shogo Watanabe, the Calderons' lawyer, told CNN he had collected more than 20,000 signatures in Japan to try and keep the family together in the country.

He said: 'Children should be protected when their parents are punished.

'It's the child's right. But there's no consideration for that at all. I do not think the government is being flexible.'

All the family can do now is hope their next meeting would come sooner rather than later.

As she left the departure lounge, her mother said: 'I told her to take care of herself and make sure she doesn't catch a cold.'

This article was first published in The New Paper.