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When police searched a group of abandoned motels in a city some 50 kilometers northeast of Tokyo earlier this year, they found more than 20 Vietnamese men and women living together in a community that included a restaurant and a karaoke bar.
"There is possibility that these were people who had nowhere else to go," an investigative source said.
The Vietnamese, who have since been deported, were living in about 10 motels that were no longer in use in Bando, Ibaraki Prefecture, according to the police. It is believed some of them had fled from Japanese firms where they were working as technical intern trainees.
The motels were owned by a 40-year-old Vietnamese company executive, who was indicted in late October on the charge of abetting their illegal stay by providing them with housing.
The executive has told the police she provided housing after being "requested by a group involved with illegal overstayers," according to an investigative source said.
Two to four people were living in each motel, paying 40,000 yen ($262) a month in rent, said the source.
Located along the Tone River, Bando has a population of about 50,000, with vegetable cultivation its prime industry.
After entering a gravel path from a highway and proceeding about 100 meters, a Kyodo News reporter who visited the area late last month saw a group of old one-story motels lined up in a U-shape. One of the buildings still had a sign that read "Vietnamese restaurant."
According to investigative sources, most of the Vietnamese people who lived there had come to Japan as technical intern trainees, believing the claim that they "can earn money" in the country.
But they left their jobs due to low wages or after being assaulted by their bosses, the sources said, adding it is believed that they moved to the motels after living together in neighboring Chiba Prefecture and exchanging information through social media.
In Japan, a number of foreign technical intern trainees have disappeared from their workplace due to a poor work environment. A record 9,753 such trainees went missing in 2023, Justice Ministry sources said citing preliminary data.
By country, Vietnam topped the list with 5,481, followed by Myanmar at 1,765 and China at 816. Nearly half of all those that disappeared were engaged in construction-related jobs, said the sources.
A woman who lives near the motels recollects, "I couldn't sleep because of the sounds of karaoke and voices echoing all night long."
© KYODO
17 Comments
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Mr Kipling
At last some good news. Well done Japan, make a decision and act on it in a timely fashion.
sakurasuki
That motel is a shelter, from harsh Japanese working condition.
Albert
@sakurasuki
Again another statement just you because you think something.
sakurasuki
@Albert
Some of their salary not being paid, even they've done overtime.
Should they stay on their job?
https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/88-vietnamese-workers-left-unpaid-for-2-5-months-in-japan-4759685.html
puregaijin
I’m sincerely hoping this is not just a flash in the pan. And that Japan is dead serious about preventing illegal immigration. Japan HAS GOT TO LEARN FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES.
Abe234
Good work.
JeffLee
The situation is similar to Germany in the 1960s when large numbers of Turkish "guest workers" arrived. They were only supposed to stay temporarily. But a significant number overstayed and then human rights lawyers got on their side, who pressured the courts and govt to allow them to stay. The japanese authorities today, however, have a very different attitude! DW says this diaspora has "transformed" Germany society. I don't think the Japanese want any such "transformation." LOL.
I hope the police are looking into the allegations of assault. Japan is a law and order society, right?
owzer
This is the best news of the month!
GillislowTier
I won’t blame them for fleeing their abusive and exploitative working conditions. Jgov had and still has a responsibility for getting this situation under control and refuses to.
But geeze a whole community living off the books for who knows how long is wild. Guess the small declining towns are a great place to take cover in.
WhenIfNotToday
This person is knowingly spread misinformation. At best he is picking very few individual cases and stretching the truth. At worst, he is likely a islamophobic or white supremacist. Please don't believe him.
Here is the truth according to ChatGPT:
Q: has Turkish workers to Germany over stayed their visa in 1960s
A: In the 1960s, when Germany invited Turkish workers under the Gastarbeiter (guest worker) program, the initial expectation was that these workers would stay temporarily. The first recruitment agreement between Turkey and Germany was signed in 1961, with many Turkish workers filling labor shortages in sectors such as manufacturing and construction.
Initially, the intention was for these workers to return to Turkey after a few years. However, as many found stable jobs and began to establish families in Germany, a significant number chose to stay. The guest worker agreements allowed for limited stays, typically two years, but many Turkish workers renewed their contracts or found legal pathways to remain. By the late 1960s and 1970s, Germany had made provisions for these workers to stay longer-term, and reunification policies allowed their families to join them.
Thus, while some might not have returned as initially expected, they generally did so with permission or through evolving legal channels, rather than overstaying in the strict sense of remaining without legal status.
JeffLee
@Whenifnottoday
I got my info from a 350-page well-researched book (see below). You cherry picked a ChatGPT entry that fails to detail the legal and political processes involved, which the book does.
"Europe's Angry Muslims: The Revolt of the Second Generation"
https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Robert-S-Leiken/dp/0195328973
Zaphod
I do not think that some Vietnamese visa overstayers are a big problem for Japanese society. A different story would be if the Japanese government follows UN pressure and throws open the gates for an unlimited flow of self-declared refugees, EU style. Thankfully that is not happening, at least for the moment.
WhenIfNotToday
Nah, you said
implying, they were staying illegally. That is the misinformation.
A book only reflects what an author wants to convey. It is very easy to find the references to back up those claims. I am an author with lots of scientific publications and definitely wrote more than 350 pages, including peer reviewed journals and conferences. I wouldn't expect someone just to blindly follow my research. I would question the message of a book written in social sciences even more.
Believe or not, I would pick ChatGPT in vast majority of cases over one book knowing the internals of LLM algorithms, how they work and kind of data they use to train those models.
So please don't spread misinformation just to backup your political opinions.
El Rata
Good! Show America how it's done! Being illegaly in Japan is an insult for all of us who are here legally.
gaijintraveller
Is there ever any punishment for the bad employers of trainees? Do the police make any effort to trace and punish them?
mikeylikesit
ChatGPT is a predictive language model, not a reliable source of accurate information. You’ve gone to the one public source that is so many levels below Wikipedia in reliability that it boggles my mind anyone uses it for information. For many years, Wikipedia has been the bottom rung for lazy, inaccurate “research” in comment threads. We have a new winner.
ChatGPT is not going to give good guidance on serious human questions like immigration. You’ve doubled the problem by twisting the original post into what you think it implied, creating for yourself a convenient straw man.
Makoto Shimizu
It is utmost important that these foreigners be treated according to the law and all government agencies work on fully understanding the root causes of this situation. Fact, people are attracted by the offer of good jobs and good pay but are not warned about harsh conditions of work. Some social work must be done, the companies that they had worked for need to be investigated in depth. Public authorities must be impartial and analyze case by case to minimize and avoid new cases. Simply classifying these people as criminals will not resolve the issue of illegal stay, it is necessary a broader vision, a wider view of the entire situation that feeds, motivates immigrants to run away from these companies, it seems to be obvious, but, nobody leaves a place where there is respect, fairness, good treatment.