A panel of experts submitted its final report on the reassessment, scrapping and redesign of the controversial foreign technical intern program to Justice Minister Ryuji Koizumi on Thursday.
After roughly a year of meetings, the cumulative report contains recommendations on a newly designed policy — tentatively referred to as the “Training and Employment System” — for lawmakers who now have the task of creating specific policy measures.
The government made clear its intent to review the system by convening the expert panel in late 2022, in response to calls that the system was the cause of foreign worker abuse and related human rights violations. Eventually, it announced the planned replacement of the program by the start of the 2024 fiscal year.