Japan: Foreign workers victims of abuse and drudgery at will

Published on: 04/15/2022 – 18:18Modified on: 04/15/2022 – 18:20 In Japan, videos of a Vietnamese worker abused by his colleagues have revived the debate around the “training program for technical trainees “. In a country that is very closed to immigration, this system of bringing in unskilled labor from abroad encourages the abuse and exploitation of workers, as our Observers denounce. The images had made the rounds of the media of the archipelago last January. Three videos compiled from September 2020 showed a Vietnamese man in his forties being assaulted by his Japanese colleagues, in a construction company in the Hiroshima region. In an excerpt, one of his colleagues criticizes him for not responding in Japanese before hitting him. In another excerpt, the Vietnamese worker is hit with a broomstick in the back of a truck. These videos filmed in September 2020 were transmitted to Japanese media by the Fukuyama Union Tampopo union. According to the “Fukuyama Union Tampopo” union, which took him under its wing and delivered the video to the Japanese media, this Vietnamese worker (whose identity has not been revealed) suffered this kind of violence for at least two years. in this company which he joined in 2019. Violence which continued despite a report in June 2021 – these videos in support – to the organization which supervised his “internship” in Japan. In the process, the Ministry of Justice asked, on January 26, the immigration services to take immediate measures to put an end to “human rights violations against foreign technical trainees”. This man was working as part of a “technical internship”. This is a program created in 1993 to officially allow young Asian workers to gain professional experience in Japan, through an internship ranging from two to five years. Japan has long remained closed to the rest of the world, with immigration limited to educated and skilled workers. But to cope with an aging population and a general labor shortage ahead, the country is opening up little by little, notably with a law in 2019 granting visas to certain migrants who are less qualified but with “skills “Even if they work too many hours, or if they are mistreated by their boss, they have to deal with it, they have no choice.”In fact, the majority of foreign workers come with a status of “trainee” as explained to our editorial staff Shinichiro Nakashima, one of the first and rare lawyers specializing in the labor law of foreigners. The Technical Intern Training Program is supposed to train workers from developing Asian countries so that they can return to their countries with new knowledge and skills. But it has actually become a real system to bring foreign workers to Japan to compensate for the shortage of labor that Japan is going through in the field of manufacturing, agriculture and construction. .At the end of 2021, there were more than 350,000 technical trainees in Japan, mainly from Vietnam, China or the Philippines. A figure down from 2019, before the arrival of Covid-19 and the closing of borders. These technical trainees are not simple migrant workers, their status favors abuse, as our Observer explains to us: Many are indebted up to 1 million yen [environ 7 400 euros, NDLR] to pay for their travel and settling here and are then paid minimum wage (sometimes less than they were promised). In addition, this program does not allow changing jobs once assigned to a company. Interns also cannot choose where they live, their accommodation is defined and managed by the program. So even if they work too many hours, or if they are mistreated by their boss [ou leurs collègues]… They have to deal with it, they have no choice. Unbearable rhythms, unpaid overtime, threats of dismissal after an accident at work… The list of abuses reported by migrant aid associations and the media continues to grow. Of the 6,000 companies that call on technical trainees, 70% allegedly violated labor laws, according to a survey by the Ministry of Labor in 2017. Foreign trainees are also overrepresented in cases of deaths related to work exhaustion. employers, Shinichiro Nakashima founded Kumustaka, an association based in the prefecture of Kumamoto, in the south of the archipelago. And many women come knocking at his door. Moral and sexual harassment, broken contracts after announcing a pregnancy: women suffer even more than men the abuse aimed at technical trainees. “I was made to understand that I had better have an abortion”Vanessa, 25, left the Philippines to make some money through a technical internship in a health center in Kumamoto. Everything was going relatively well, until she got pregnant in April 2021. I was told that I should take responsibility for my pregnancy, that because of me the trust between the Japanese and the Filipino trainees would be broken… Then they made me understand that I had better have an abortion. I refused. It was in particular the person in charge of my internship in Japan who first told me that. Abortion is a crime in the Philippines. He should have realized he wasn’t talking to a Japanese woman, who can get a safe abortion. And anyway, I think only the mother of the child should make this decision. What I originally wanted to do was just take maternity leave. [jusqu’à 14 semaines au Japon, NDLR] and go back to the Philippines and then come back once the leave is over. I even had a favorable medical opinion which said that I could continue to work under certain conditions, that is to say, to avoid night shifts and heavy loads. But I was forced to sign the papers to terminate my contract. They [l’entreprise et l’organisme qui gère le stage] threatened me, telling me that they would eject me from the apartment, that I would be on the street… [ les logements sont attribués par le programme, NDLR].Today, Vanessa returned to the Philippines, to her mother, with whom she is raising her son. Despite her painful experience, she still wishes to return when she can to Japan. She has even already found another internship. “I’m not asking for much. Not money or anything insurmountable, only the right to be treated fairly. I really want to say loud and clear that interns have rights [au Japon]”Vanessa is not the only one to have found herself in this situation. However, technical trainees are supposed to be protected by the Japanese law on equal employment opportunities, which among other things prohibits employers from dismissing or mistreating workers due to pregnancy or childbirth.In 2019, the Japanese government also warned companies that hired foreign technical interns, asking them in particular not to fire their pregnant employees. to meet the same fate as Vanessa, some women prefer to hide their pregnancy, to the point of leading to tragedies. Sentenced to 3 months in prison for having “abandoned” the bodies of babies in January 2022, the Kumustaka association is now trying to clear her. This is the second case of a dead baby. -born linked to a hidden pregnancy of a technical trainee identified in the space of a few months. In 2017, Japan’s parliament passed a law that was supposed to prohibit employers from “restricting the freedom of interns without just cause”, and another that was supposed to condemn “hate speech” against them. But cases like that of the Vietnamese worker harassed by his colleagues continue to pile up. One of the explanations according to Shinichiro Nakashima: the trainees are not aware of their rights, in particular those who speak little or no Japanese.