Japan Press Weekly

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2018 December 5 - 11 [LABOR]

174 foreign trainees died in eight years

A total of 174 foreign trainees died during eight years from 2010 to 2017. This was revealed in documents that the Justice Ministry submitted to the Japanese Communist Party.

According to the documents, of the 174 foreign workers (132 men and 42 women), those who were in their 20s (118) and 30s (48) made up the majority. The 174 deceased included 98 Chinese, 46 Vietnamese, and 12 Indonesians.

In the list of causes of the death, in addition to 25 drownings and 12 suicides, there were many deaths due to cardiac infarction and subarachnoid hemorrhage. This suggests the possibility that foreign trainees may have been forced to work themselves to death. A foreign trainee was found unconscious in bed in the morning and was immediately taken to hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.

On top of that, many foreign trainees died due to occupational accidents during working hours. One fell to his death from a six-meter-high scaffold at a demolition site. Another trainee was dragged into the sea from a fishing boat after his feet got caught in the rope. The trainee’s death was later registered without the body being found.

As of the end of March 2018, around 274,000 foreign trainees worked in Japan.

Past related articles:
> 67% of ‘runaway’ foreign trainees paid less than Japan’s minimum wage [December 4, 2018]
> Gov’t proposal for legal changes will expose foreign workers to human rights violations: JCP Fujino [November 14, 2018]