Japan to probe whether pregnant foreign trainees were forced to quit
- A government survey will ask people from seven countries, including China, Indonesia and Vietnam, if they have signed documents pledging to resign if they become pregnant
- The move comes amid increasing attention on abuses in the state-run technical internship programme launched in 1993
The Japanese government is conducting a survey to determine whether foreign technical trainees have been forced by employers or intermediary groups to leave the country because they fell pregnant or gave birth.
The Immigration Services Agency of Japan and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare are working together on what appears to be the first survey of its kind, amid increased attention over a growing number of cases of harassment and abuse of trainees.
The survey aims to obtain responses from around 490 people on the government-sponsored technical internship programme, asking respondents if they know of cases where women have been sent to their home country after becoming pregnant or having a child.
The government introduced the programme in 1993, with trainees allowed to work for up to five years at companies with the view of using skills learned in Japan to contribute to their home countries’ economies. The scheme has been criticised as providing cover for companies to import cheap labour from across Asia.
At the end of 2021, some 276,000 people were engaged in the programme, with the highest proportions from Vietnam, China and Indonesia.