A Lower House committee passed a bill Friday intended to shake up a state-sponsored foreign traineeship program slammed by critics as akin to modern slavery.

The move represents a turning point for the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP), which has for years been synonymous with a gamut of human rights violations against trainees, including overwork, underpayment, sexual harassment and passport confiscation.

However, questions remain over the efficacy of the bill, which some have called merely cosmetic.