A Japanese firm will be banned from accepting foreign trainees when a number of Japanese employees were found battering a Vietnamese apprentice for two years.

A screenshot from video footage shows a Vietnamese trainee (center) being hit with a broom-like object by his Japanese colleagues in September 2020. Photo: Fukuyama Union Tanpopo/Kyodo

On February 18, Six Create in Okayama Prefecture in western Japan was revoked the permit to accept foreign technical trainees for the next five years after the mistreatment was revealed not long ago. 

“Acts of human rights violation against technical trainees must never take place,” Kyodo quoted Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa at a press conference in Tokyo, adding the government will take tough punishment if similar cases occur in the future.

The immigration agency admitted that “human rights violations including assault” took place at the company, although it declined to disclose details.

The Vietnamese trainee, 41, said he arrived in Japan in the fall of 2019 and that the abuse began around a month after he started working. He suffered serious injuries, including broken bones.

Video footage of the violence showed him being punched, hit on head and body with a broom, and berated for failing to speak Japanese properly.

The man is demanding an apology and compensation from the construction company and an intermediate agency which introduced the man to the company.

The agency is studying whether to file a criminal complaint against the Japanese coworker and to take any action against the intermediate body, also based in Okayama.

The man, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters last month in Tokyo that he felt unable to report his abuse to police for fear of retaliation.

“What I was most afraid of was that I might no longer be able to work at the company and be sent back to Vietnam,” he said in a virtual news conference. “I was very scared and panicked and did not know what to do.”

In response to local media at a press conference on February 17, Spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang of Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Vietnamese citizen’s condition is now safe.   

The Japanese company has admitted violations and pledged to compensate the victim, Hang said, adding that other Vietnamese interns at the company have also been transferred to the management union’s residence for settlement and may be sent to another workplace.

As of end-2021, about 55,000 Vietnamese interns were waiting to fly to Japan for work, statistics by the Vietnam Association of Manpower Supply (VAMAS) showed.

Vietnam's workers wait to fly to Japan for work. Photo: Dan Tri