Japan exploiting Asian guest workers, US State Department report says
US State Department calls training scheme for young foreigners a form of forced labour
The United States has issued a strongly worded criticism of the Japanese government's Industrial Trainee and Technical Internship Programme, describing the scheme that supposedly aids young foreign workers as "forced labour".
The government's trainee programme came in for particular criticism, with lawyers who have represented foreign victims of labour violations expressing fears that the situation will worsen, as the government has announced plans to extend and expand the scheme.
Introduced to promote basic industrial and technical skills among young trainees from other countries in Asia, the programme has 151,000 members in Japan. Some 73 per cent are Chinese and the majority of the rest come from Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.
And while the concept is laudable, the reality has been that the scheme has been abused by employers to serve as a source of cheap labour, and participants have few rights.
The US report said trainees paid as much as US$7,300 to take part, but were required to sign "contracts that mandate forfeiture of thousands of dollars if workers try to leave".
Many of the trainees are placed in jobs that do not teach technical skills - such as labouring to bring in crops on farms - while some are underpaid. Others were charged inflated rents for "cramped, poorly insulated housing that keeps them in debt", the report said.