Karoshi and deaths from workplace injuries among migrant workers is not a new phenomenon in Japan. According to Department of Justice, from 2010 to 2018, 174 migrant workers who came to Japan as technical interns have lost their lives due to various reasons including from brain or heart failures, suicide, death from illnesses and death from workplace accidents. One froze to death. Of the 174, 118 were still in their 20’s. 

The state-sponsored Technical Intern Training Program has been in place since 1993 and it’s official aim is to transfer skills to developing countries by allowing workers from those countries, mainly from Southeast Asia including China, Vietnam, and Nepal, to work in Japan for three to five years under the program. But it has been used as a way to solve worker shortage from the ageing population and many incidents of labor rights and human rights violations have been reported. The labor standards office’s inspection records show that labor standards act violations, including illegal overtime and unpaid wages among others, have been seen in around 70 percent of workplaces the investigation was conducted in 2019. The main reason that so many violations are being reported is that the program does not allow interns (this is what they are called even though they are essentially and legally workers) to transfer to different workplace. Thus, it becomes easy for employers to take advantage of the interns since the only way for them to escape is to go back to their native countries. However, many of them have to sell their houses and borrow money to just to come to Japan and they cannot return until they have earned enough to pay off their debts. 

As such, many are working extremely long hours for significantly low wage. Chinese interns working in a garment sector in Gifu, Japan worked a few years with very few days off and they were paid 400 yen per hour when the minimum wage in the area was 800 yen per hour. They were owed approximately 6.3 million yen in unpaid overtime. 

Since they are continuously worked extremely long hours, there have been numerous cases of deaths that may be caused by overwork. Since 2010 to 2017, 41 interns passed away from brain or heart diseases or passed away suddenly. In addition, 14 have committed suicide. These cases are highly likely to be work related but since in order for any death or injury to be officially recognized as workplace related, the victim (in the case of karoshi, victim’s family members) must submit an application to claim the compensation from the government, not all have been officially considered as karoshi. In fact, it remains quite difficult for victim’s family members to submit the application which is written only in Japanese to the local labor standards office, it is very rare for the victim’s family to be compensated. 

From 2014 to 2017, on average, 3.7 interns lost their lives due to workplace injuries out of 100,000. In case of Japanese workers, 1.7 lost their lives out of 100,000 workers. It is clear that interns are being forced to work in much more dangerous environment than Japanese workers. 

The international community condemns the program. Johnson Yeung, Urgent Appeal Coordinator of the Clean Clothes Campaign East Asia said  "The United Nation Human Rights Council has criticised TITP for years, yet the Japanese government has still not taken the necessary steps to reform the programme and protect the rights of migrant workers. The government relies on migrant workers to mitigate the labour shortage, however it is refusing to stop their exploitation.” (source from https://cleanclothes-ea.org/content/forced-labour-and-debt-trap-migrant-workers-japan-face-substantial-risks-during-0）