Japan's failure to criminally investigate and prosecute more labor and child sex trafficking cases has led the United States to leave it at the second-highest tier of a four-level scale published by the State Department, its annual report said Monday.
The 2024 report said the Japanese government "does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so," recognizing that the situation has modestly improved compared with a year earlier.
The report took note of a bill aimed at reducing vulnerabilities to forced labor under Japan's so-called technical intern program submitted by the government to parliament in March, which was enacted earlier this month.
Still, it said, "Overall efforts, particularly to prevent trafficking among the highly vulnerable migrant worker population, remained inadequate."
The training program, introduced in 1993 as a way of transferring skills from Japan to developing countries, has been criticized for a long time as a cover for it to import cheap labor.
Since the launch of the program, for example, many trainees have run away due to abuses such as unpaid wages and harassment, as its tough rules have effectively prohibited them from switching workplaces.
The report also pointed to Japan's deficiencies in addressing the issue of child sex trafficking.
"Law enforcement continued to identify hundreds of children exploited in the commercial sex industry without sufficient screening for trafficking indicators, which allowed a majority of child sex traffickers to operate with impunity," the report noted.
The Trafficking in Persons Report said a total of 33 countries and territories, including Australia, Bahrain, Finland, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States, were listed in the Tier 1 group, the highest level in the rating system.
As well as Tier 2, there is the Tier 2 Watch List level at which nations that have a large and increasing number of people impacted by trafficking are placed.
Meanwhile, countries known for poor human rights records such as China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia and Syria remained in Tier 3, the lowest level.
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