"外国人・実習生に対する「強制帰国」の実態　暴力行為や拉致も横行", 26 Oct 2020

[Japanese-to-English translation provided by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.]

…Forced repatriation refers to a situation where a technical trainee is accompanied to the airport and is forced to return home by his or her work site or supervisory organization. In these cases, the trainees are forced to return home through physical violence or threats after raising complaints about labor violations.

…On occasion, forced repatriation—a common practice in Japanese society—has come under public scrutiny. For example, in 2007 a strawberry farm in Tochibi prefecture fired a Chinese technical trainee after he consulted a labour union and voiced dissatisfaction about working conditions. Within a day, he was forced into a car and taken to Narita Airport. The trainee fought back desperately at the airport, and a union officer arrived to safely retrieve him before he was forced to return home.

Another case involved six Chinese technical trainees at a cleaning factory in Yamanishi prefecture in 2018. Several days after the women asked their employer to improve working conditions, the president and 10 employees entered their dorm early in the morning while they were asleep. Facing abuse, the interns were forced into a car and taken to Narita Airport. Three of the women were forcibly repatriated while the rest fled and were later taken in custody by a labour union.

In addition, in 2018 a Vietnamese technical trainee at an aquaculture business in Kanagawa prefecture was forcibly repatriated by his supervisory organization after requesting to take paid leave…

Forced repatriation is just one aspect of day-to-day“labour management”that is used to control foreign laborers who work under severe conditions…