A record 5,803 foreign labourers in Japan under the Foreign Trainee programme went missing in 2015. The number of missing labourers has increased every year from 2011, when it was 1,534. The number was 4,847 in 2014. The Foreign Trainee programme has been subjected to harsh criticism by human rights NGOs, lawyers groups, UN human rights bodies, and the US State Department, who note that the programme has been a hotbed of human trafficking and other abuses. Human rights NGOs attribute the large number of missing labourers to the horrendous treatment that many trainees face. The conservative media claims that the increasing number of foreign nationals in an irregular situation poses security concerns.