The demand for workers in Japan is increasing year by year. This is because Japan’s population growth has been on the decline, and young Japanese workers are reluctant to work in low-skilled or dangerous industries. Japan developed the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) to address these labor shortages and to strengthen cooperation with several countries, including Indonesia. Since 1993, Japan and Indonesia have cooperated on this kind of training program, whereby Japan accepts trainees from Indonesia on a temporary basis. While the program has been amended to improve conditions for workers, there are still many unresolved problems which need attention. This study therefore aims to analyze the problems arising from the TITP from the perspective of Indonesian trainees, expose the real experiences of technical intern trainees, and provide input to the Japanese and Indonesian governments for improvements to the program. The authors used the interview method in this study with 18 participants from different prefectures in Japan.
The issues addressed in this study are as follows:
- How do Indonesian technical intern trainees experience violence (direct and indirect) during their training in Japan?
- How is the violence towards Indonesian technical intern trainees catalyzed and how does it veer them into ‘silence’?
- How does the violence against Indonesian technical intern trainees manifest into vulnerability during their migration journey?
The thesis is comprised of the following chapters.
Chapter 1. Introduction covers the background, literature review, research significance, research objective and questions, conceptual framework, methodology, and limitations. It summarizes previous studies on technical trainee migration to Japan and identifies some of the gaps in the literature. It then describes the purpose of this study, which is to examine the violence experienced by Indonesian technical intern trainees and its relation to vulnerabilities and silence.
Chapter 2. History of Technical Intern Training Program explains the background of the TITP and the critical issues which have emerged since it was introduced in Japan. It explains how the Training System was modified to become the current Technical Intern Training Program. It then presents an overview of the current TITP, the challenges of the technical intern training program, the protections from the legal framework, and the role of civil society in supporting technical intern trainees in Japan.
Chapter 3. Migration of Indonesian Migrants Through Technical Intern Training Program analyzes the TITP from the perspective of Indonesia as the sending country. It starts with the situation of international migration and poverty in Indonesia and the reasons why Indonesian technical intern trainees are attracted to the program. This chapter also analyze the cashflow between the actors in the TITP in Indonesia and Japan.
Chapter 4. Violence at the Workplace of Indonesian Technical Intern Trainees draws on in-depth interviews with trainees and presents their experiences through theories about violence. The violence experienced by technical intern trainees in this research can be divided into two types: 1. direct violence and 2. indirect violence. Indirect violence is further divided into two categories: 1. structural violence and 2. symbolic violence. Direct violence is physical or verbal abuse (visible), while indirect violence is more subtle (invisible). In this study, violence resulting from systemic violations in the technical intern trainee system is described as structural violence, such as the actions of the Implementing, Supervising, and Sending Organizations that do not comply with labor laws under the technical intern trainee system. Meanwhile, this study describes violence resulting from power domination by the institutions and other actors involved in the technical intern trainee system as symbolic violence. Symbolic violence can occur due to differences in capital (social capital, cultural capital, and symbolic capital) and class owned by technical intern trainees, compared to Sending Organizations, Supervising Organizations, and Implementing Organizations, which enables them to exercise power domination over the trainees.
Chapter 5. Silence of Indonesian Technical Intern Trainees focuses on the trainees’ silent stance during their training program in Japan. Why are they silent? This study suggests that their silence is a manifestation of the structural and symbolic violence they experience. In some cases, this was voluntary, but in others, they were forced into silence by other stakeholders, including Implementing Organizations, Supervising Organizations, and Sending Organizations. However, it was also discovered that underlying this silence is also the fear of being unable to pay off the debt encumbered by the departure fees before travelling to Japan. Therefore, they must endure and keep working until the debt can be paid off, so that debt also has a close relationship with the attitude of silence possessed by technical intern trainees. While the values of “nrimo” and “patience” are basic characteristics of Indonesian society, these values encourage the technical trainees to internalize their troubles instead of taking action to resolve problems. In addition, the lack of Japanese language skills and understanding of technical intern trainee program rules also cause Indonesian technical intern trainees to become silent workers.
Chapter 6. Vulnerabilities of Indonesian Technical Intern Trainees describes how those experiences of violence are related to the vulnerabilities of Indonesian technical intern trainees. Violence is seen as both a cause of vulnerability (increasing threats) and a reaction to vulnerability (a response to threats). In this chapter, the author applies the IOM’s “determinants of migrant vulnerability” (DoMV) model and finds that the vulnerabilities of Indonesian technical intern trainees are caused by various factors, including individual, family/household, structural, and community factors. As noted above, the debt burden from the fees they pay before they leave Indonesia is the initial trigger for vulnerability, thus positioning them in a subaltern position with no power. Even when they try to defend themselves, they are often ignored and rejected by Sending Organizations, Supervising Organizations, and Implementing Organizations. The vulnerabilities of technical intern trainees are exacerbated because the status of technical intern trainees does not fall under the Indonesian migrant workers protection law, which does not recognize the trainees as migrant workers. The author then discusses the vulnerabilities of technical intern trainees during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the decline in wages caused by reduced working hours and strict controls on mobility imposed by some Supervising Organizations and Implementing Organizations.
Finally, Conclusions and Recommendations elaborates the conclusion from the cases presented in the study and the solutions proposed for improving the TITP. Forms of violence, especially experienced by Indonesian technical intern trainees, are not only visible violations, but also take the form of invisible violations. The workers’ vulnerability is worsened because they do not have a bargaining position but instead resume a form of silence. One of the aims of this study is to identify areas of weakness, and therefore areas of improvement, for the technical intern trainee program in Japan. However, if neither the Japanese government nor the Indonesian government are willing to take steps to improve this program, it would be better to abolish it altogether and redesign a new one. In addition, Indonesian researchers in the field of Japanese studies must take on the responsibility of gathering more evidence and analysis about problems by conducting more research on the technical intern trainee program. The results of the research conducted by these researchers can become an input to discussions on how the technical intern trainee program can be run well, which will be beneficial for both Japan and Indonesia.
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