An important, yet increasingly controversial, mechanism for recruiting migrant construction workers in Japan – and foreign labour for many other sectors – is the Technical Intern Training Programme (TITP). The supposed official purpose of this state-supported scheme...is to aid the industrial development of developing countries through the transfer of skills and expertise gained by developing country ’trainees’ who undergo one to three year placements in Japanese companies…

TITP interns, 74.5 per cent of whom come from China and Vietnam, are hired in their countries of origin by recruiting agencies, which then work with Japanese business associations (so-called ‘supervising organisations’) to broker their placement with individual enterprises (‘implementing organisations’)…

Critics [of TITP] allege that...it involves widespread exploitation and human rights abuses, including human trafficking and forced labour....Tokyo 2020 preparations are a litmus test of how committed the Government and businesses are to the strategic action needed to address the adverse impacts associated with the TITP, not just in relation to the Games but in Japan’s economy as a whole.