diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 403200e..903a869 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
     - Build the new jawn-util module
   * No longer build with the embedded SBT using Scala 2.10 (Closes: #893456)
   * Fixed a build failure with Java 11
+  * Removed the unused dependency on javahelper
   * Standards-Version updated to 4.2.1
   * Switch to debhelper level 11
   * Added the missing Vcs-* fields
diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index de54c39..c04cf8d 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@
 Build-Depends:
  debhelper (>= 11),
  default-jdk,
- javahelper,
  libjson4s-java,
  maven-repo-helper,
  scala
@@ -17,8 +16,7 @@
 
 Package: libjawn-java
 Architecture: all
-Depends: ${java:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, libjson4s-java
-Recommends: ${java:Recommends}
+Depends: ${misc:Depends}, libjson4s-java
 Description: Scala json parser
  Jawn was designed to parse JSON into an AST as quickly as possible.
  Jawn consists of three parts: a fast, generic JSON parser, a small, somewhat
diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index d037bc9..617e9f3 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 SCALA_BINARY_VERSION=$(SCALA_MAJOR).$(SCALA_MINOR)
 
 %:
-	dh $@ --with javahelper --with maven-repo-helper
+	dh $@ --with maven-repo-helper
 
 override_dh_auto_build:
 	# parser