Exploitation of migrant garment workers in Japanese state-supported trainee program
The Clean Clothes Campaign highlights the abuse of migrant garment workers in Japan, and Anti-Trafficking Review's newest issue analyses technology tools available in the anti-trafficking field.
Tomorrow, we will host the second in our series of COVID-19 Rapid Response webinars in collaboration with the USAID Asia CTIP program. During this webinar, we will hear from civil society organizations and experts on Malaysia’s migration sector about how they are responding to the pandemic and the impact of COVID-19 on migrant workers. We hope you will join us and we also encourage you to participate in online conversations regarding the crisis by joining our dedicated Facebook group.
Updates in the group have focused on a range of issues, from assistance for at-risk communities in northern Thailand to the lack of access to food or health services for sex workers and victims of sexual exploitation, and the migrants working in Malaysia's rubber glove factories who feel "unsafe" amid the pandemic.
Report: Exploitation of migrant garment workers in Japanese state-supported trainee program
A new report by the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), entitled ‘Made In Japan’, highlights the reality of life for migrant garment workers under Japan’s state-supported Technical Intern Training Programme. Based upon research and interviews with migrant garment workers who produce clothing for domestic brands, the report highlights a range of violations including debt bondage, illegally low wages, verbal abuse and unsafe working and living conditions.
Coronavirus has resulted in a state of emergency being declared in Japan due to a sharp rise in cases, and migrant workers are particularly at risk given the over-crowded and unsanitary working and living conditions they are subjected to.
Established by the Japanese government in 1993 with the aim of solving the worker shortage resulting from an ageing population, Japan’s domestic garment production relies heavily upon TITP migrant workers yet the Labour Inspection Office in Japan found almost 70% of the businesses that had hired TITP workers were in violation of labour laws. Migrant workers are especially vulnerable to exploitation as they often do not speak the language and lack community support or access to legal advice, and their situation has become even more precarious during this pandemic.
Workers report being forced to work 18 hours a day, seven days per week in times of peak production, earning poverty pay of ¥200 – 300 (USD $2-3) per hour, far below the statutory minimum wage of ¥754 (USD $7.13), plus overtime. Added to this injustice is debt bondage, with some workers reportedly being charged USD $6,000 by agencies as an enrolment fee for the scheme.
CCC calls on the Japanese government to take immediate active steps to protect the legal rights of migrant workers. Drastic government reforms are urgently needed given the current health crisis as migrant workers continue to put their lives at risk producing in overcrowded factories where social distancing is impossible.
Read the full report here.
Here’s a round-up of other noteworthy updates and initiatives:
The new issue of Anti-Trafficking Review explores assumptions around the technological tools currently available that purport to address trafficking and exploitation. The authors call for more evidence but also for more attention to be paid to issues such as fair labour migration regimes and decent work, and analyse various apps developed with the goal of combating exploitation. They show that many of these apps have limited, if any, benefit for trafficked persons or at-risk groups, while largely reinforcing neoliberal economic ideologies about the limited role of governments in regulating businesses. Such apps can only be useful when they are developed by, for, and with the people meant to use them.
Yesterday, President Donald J. Trump announced the intent to appoint new members to the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) launched the #CovidCrimeWatch last month. As part of the initiative, it has produced a podcast that looks at organized crime, human trafficking and COVID, featuring Verité, NetClean Technologies, Wayamo Foundation, eLiberare, and Blue Dragon Children's Foundation.
Tech Against Trafficking, a coalition of global tech companies, civil society organizations, and international institutions, in which GI-TOC serves as the research lead, is also conducting a survey to better understand the short and long-term impacts of COVID-19 and discover how best to advance anti-trafficking efforts in 2020.
Across the world, members of ECPAT, a leading children’s rights organization that works to protect children from trafficking and exploitation, note that restrictions imposed by governments to curb the virus heavily impact on children. In this recent podcast episode, ECPAT discusses the links between the coronavirus and child sexual exploitation.
The regional working group for risk communication and community engagement to fight coronavirus in West and Central Africa has launched an online library of ready-made tools designed to be culturally adapted and context specific.
Sex workers have been excluded from support packages developed by European governments in response to COVID-19. As a result, the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe has developed a campaign website with a call for action.
The founders of the organization Sanjog India shared how the lockdown has affected a group of female survivors in Bengal, India.
Tomorrow, the Brookings Doha Center is hosting a webinar discussion about the impact of COVID-19 on key migrant workers in the Gulf region.
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