Forced Labor in Tokyo (2024)

A forced labor case from 2024 in Tokyo, Japan. 1 source on file.

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What happened

Foreign workers participating in Japan's Technical Intern Training Program (TITP), including workers from China, remained vulnerable to labor trafficking. Workers paid high recruitment fees to sending organizations for jobs including food processing, manufacturing, construction and other industries. Documented trafficking indicators included restricted freedom of movement and communication, confiscation of passports and other documents, wage garnishment, poor living conditions, threats of deportation or harm, and debt-based coercion. Accused: Japanese food processing companies and Chinese brokers.

Response and intervention

Japanese Immigration Services Agency investigation. Companies sanctioned; TITP successor program launched with safeguards. Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan.

Sources

Japan Times (opens in a new tab)

Nearby cases

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Forced Labor2023

Tokyo, Japan, 2023

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Vietnamese workers in Technical Intern Training Program placed in seafood processing instead of promised training. Excessive hours garnished wages confiscated passports Accused: Japanese company and Vietnamese broker.

1 source

Sex Trafficking2005

Tokyo, Japan, 2005

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See above. In 2005, this was the first arrest under a new law which Japan introduced in June to combat human trafficking. The Metropolitan Police Department stated this case was only the tip of the iceburg and planned to use recent amendments to the Penal Code, which criminalized human trafficking, to tighten its crackdown on such brokers. At the time the MPD determined that at least 77 foreign women found in 2004 to have been forced into prostitution were victims of trafficking, 48 of whom were from Thailand. Police were only able to take action on 23 brokers who introduced girls to pimps.

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Bonded Labor2006

Tokyo, Japan, 2006

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Takashi Mori, 58, Koji Akagawa, 48, and two accomplices from Osaka sent false documents to the Japanese consulate in Khabarovsk, in Russia's Far East, with a request that visas be issued to a group of specialists for a period of training at one of the city's professional schools. A group of young Russian women entered Japan shortly after April 7. Investigation established that this and other groups, totaling 40 women, rather than taking courses were employed as hostesses at local restaurants and nightclubs.

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