Approximately 70 percent of companies investigated by the labour authorities in 2017 were guilty of labour rights violations against foreign labourers in Japan under the Technical Internship Trainee Programme (TITP). Violations included forcing ‘interns’ to work excessive overtime, withholding of wages, and inadequate safety measures. In one case, a printing company had forced an ‘intern’ to work 160 hours of overtime in one month. In another case, a shipbuilding company had neglected to report an accident that had resulted in serious injuries. The TITP has been the subject on longstanding criticism by UN human rights bodies, domestic and international NGOs, and the US State Department, all of which point to inadequate safeguards against human trafficking and other rights abuses.