JAPAN (Tier 2)

Japan is a destination, and to a much lesser extent, source and
transit country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking
in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Male
and female migrant workers from China, Indonesia, the Philippines,
Vietnam, and other Asian countries are sometimes subject to conditions
of forced labor. Some women and children from East Asia, Southeast
Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, South America, and Latin America who
travel to Japan for employment or fraudulent marriage are forced into
prostitution. Japanese organized crime syndicates (the Yakuza) are
believed to play a significant role in trafficking in Japan, both
directly and indirectly. Traffickers strictly control the movements of
victims, using debt bondage, threats of violence, and other coercive
psychological methods to control victims. The media and NGOs continue
to report abuses of the Industrial Trainee and Technical Internship
Program (the “foreign trainee program”), including debt bondage,
restrictions on movement, unpaid overtime, and fraud - elements which
contribute to situations of trafficking. Women typically faced debt
upwards of $49,000 upon commencement of their contracts, and had to
pay employers additional fees for living expenses, medical care, and
other necessities, leaving them predisposed to debt bondage. “Fines”
for misbehavior added to their original debt, and the process that
employers used to calculate these debts was not transparent. A growing
and significant number of Japanese women and girls are victims of sex
trafficking in the country, a highly lucrative industry for criminal
networks and other operators in Japan. In the case of domestic
victims, the threat of blackmail, credit card debts, and other debts
from loan sharks are often used as coercive mechanisms in trafficking.
Japan is a transit country for persons trafficked from East Asia to
North America. Japanese men continue to be a significant source of
demand for child sex tourism in Southeast Asia.