Last month, a Chinese trainee went on a stabbing rampage at a Hiroshima Prefecture seafood company where he worked, killing the president and an employee and wounding six others.
The man had been a trainee at the oyster-processing plant as part of a government-authorized technical intern program for foreigners. Media reports indicate discord with his employer and coworkers drove him to violence.
Allegations of abuses, including exploitation of cheap labor, confinement, poor or no wages and other rights violations, have been laid against the program from early on, and human rights lawyers are now calling for the system to be terminated.