"Expectant trainees told to end pregnancy or leave Japan," 02 December 2018

Torn between having an abortion to keep working to pay off her family's...debt or give up her internship...a 22-year old technical trainee from Vietnam decided to flee her workplace.

Many pregnant technical trainees are being forced to make a tough decision by their employers and related organizations.

Sentouitsu Workers Union...which organizes individual workers irrespective of their company affiliation, arranged for the trainee to flee her direre situation. 

At a pre-internship training facility... technical trainees are required to sign a letter of consent that forbids them from "having any romantic relationship with the opposite sex"...

Syoichi Ibusuki, a lawyer familiar with the issues surrounding foreign technical trainees, said, "It is a clear violation of human rights and an unacceptable practice to forbid trainees from getting involved in romantic relationships and becoming pregnant."

In 2013, a Chinese technical trainee filed a lawsuit against her employer in Toyama Prefecture, alleging that she suffered a miscarriage after the company attempted to forcibly send her back to China because of her pregnancy. The court ruled in favor of the trainee.