Foreign trainee abuses doubled

A record 449 corporations and organizations that accepted foreign nationals under a controversial trainee and intern system were found to have treated them unlawfully and abusively in 2007, the Justice Ministry said.

The figure is twice the number from a year earlier. The ministry said employers had violated labor laws in 178 cases. Companies sent trainees and interns to workplaces other than those they had reported to the ministry in 115 cases. In 98 cases, they illegally forced participants to work overtime or on holidays, the ministry said.(IHT/Asahi: May 12,2008)