The company, named “Six Create” and headquartered in Okayama prefecture, will be banned from receiving foreign interns in five years, according to the administrative penalty decision issued by the Immigration Services Agency of Japan (ISAJ) and the country’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW).

The Japanese Government will strictly deal with any future similar cases, Japanese Minister of Justice Yoshihisa Furukawa told a press meeting in Tokyo.

Earlier, Japanese media reported that last month, a technical intern from Vietnam denounced that he had been mistreated by his colleagues while working at a construction company in Okayama prefecture, and that he was demanding his company appologise and make compensation.

The Fukuyama Union Tanpopo, a labour union based in Hiroshima prefecture, said they had reported this case to the Organisation for Technical Intern Training (OTIT), a Tokyo-based agency specialised in monitoring training programmes for foreign workers.

According to the Fukuyama Union Tanpopo, the 41-year-old intern of Vietnamese nationality arrived in Japan in autumn of 2019, when he started working at the abovementioned construction company. However, after about one month, three Japanese colleagues began mistreating him, making this intern suffer from three broken ribs.

The company has admitted the mistreatment and said it will apologise and compensate the Vietnamese intern, according to Mitsugu Muto, Chairman of the Fukuyama Union Tanpopo.

In response to this case, the ISAJ, MHLW, and OTIT on January 24 appealed to the companies receiving interns and broker organisations to monitor mistreatment in the workplace.

Source:  VNA