News US labour, child sex trafficking report: Japan still has work to do

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The U.S. State Department's 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report has once again placed Japan in Tier 2 for the fifth year running, citing the country's inadequate measures in addressing child prostitution and the exploitation of foreign technical interns. Despite acknowledging Japan's significant efforts to eradicate human trafficking, the report criticizes the low number of investigations and prosecutions for labour and child sex trafficking, highlighting that many child sex traffickers continue to evade justice. The report urges the Japanese government to intensify its efforts to investigate and prosecute both sex and labour trafficking crimes and to impose appropriate penalties on those found guilty while also noting that China remains at the bottom of the rankings.

According to the report, "the number of criminal investigations and cases prosecuted by the government for labor trafficking and child sex trafficking remained low." "A majority of child sex traffickers (were allowed) to operate with impunity," it said. The report called on the government to "vigorously investigate and prosecute sex and labor trafficking and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers." The human trafficking report maintained China in the lowest ranking. It said, "there was a government policy or pattern of widespread forced labor" involving Uighurs and members of other ethnic minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region "under the guise of 'vocational training' and 'deradicalization.'" Other countries in the same group include North Korea, Russia and Iran. In East Asia, South Korea was upgraded to Tier 1. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam was upgraded to Tier 2.

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