The Vietnamese workers Japan depends on are falling through the cracks. One Buddhist nun is trying to catch them.

The 43-year-old’s temple is a one-stop shop for Vietnamese migrants who have struggled to find a home in Japan, and fills a gaping hole in the social safety net of the world’s third-largest economy. The Vietnamese community has grown tenfold in the past decade and makes up the largest share of foreign workers in the country, but these migrants remain overlooked by the government that relies on their labor and often exploited by the companies that hire them.

“As a nun, my efforts aren’t based on a political motive or wanting to criticize a system, but simply from a humanitarian perspective,” Tri said. “If there is someone in front of me who needs help, it is natural that I want to help them, and I am happy to. Our temple has no gates, and the door is open to everyone 24/7.”

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the isolation of these workers, and to meet the overwhelming need, Tri opened a second location in November. Since April 2020, she has delivered more than 60,000 food and aid packages to Vietnamese residents struggling in the pandemic.

Japan’s workforce is shrinking as the population ages, forcing the country to dramatically expand on what was once unthinkable in a largely homogenous society where foreigners make up about 2 percent of the population — migrant workers. Among the key programs is the Technical Intern Training Program, which funnels many workers to manufacturing, agricultural and fishery jobs in rural areas.

These jobs are vital to the country’s economy but are unattractive to younger Japanese who increasingly flock to large cities for higher-paying jobs.

Yet for the past decade, there have been concerns about the program’s employment practices and about regulatory loopholes that haven’t been addressed. The program, originally designed to transfer technical skills to workers from developing countries, has been named repeatedly in the U.S. State Department’s annual human-trafficking report, which cited concerns about forced-labor practices and poor living and working conditions.

“The Technical Intern Training Program isn’t getting worse but simply has been bad throughout the 30 years the program has been in place,” said Shoichi Ibusuki, a Tokyo-based human rights lawyer and longtime advocate for foreign workers in Japan. “There have been some measures implemented that have led to minor changes, but there are always loopholes around it, because fundamentally the system has not been changed.”

Vietnamese made up a quarter of Japan’s 1.7 million foreign workers as of October 2020. They account for about 57 percent of the 354,104 workers in the intern program.

The program has come under fire in recent weeks after a viral video surfaced of a Vietnamese worker apparently being beaten by Japanese co-workers. In the clip, released by the labor union representing the worker, the person filming can be heard laughing.

In January, Japanese Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa ordered an investigation of the case and a full review of the program in response to the recent criticisms. Ibusuki said he hopes the review provides momentum for lasting change.

“I hope that real changes will take place where foreign workers’ human rights are being prioritized, and it won’t be some new program presented in disguise,” he said.

‘I want to warmly help them’

Tri, the daughter of a single mother, followed a monastic life as a child growing up in the central Vietnamese village of Gia Lai before moving to Japan in about 2000 to study Buddhism. But the devastating 2011 triple disaster of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant meltdown inspired Tri to take up a life of community service.

Over the years, the Vietnamese Embassy, Vietnamese airlines and members of the 440,000-strong community have all leaned on her for support.

Her phone rarely stops ringing and dinging with calls, texts, emails and Facebook messages from those seeking her help. Tri, who speaks impeccable Japanese, helps migrants sort through language and cultural barriers.

She negotiates workers’ hospital bills, which are expensive because the migrants don’t have company insurance. When companies confiscate workers’ passports, she helps them report them as lost to obtain new ones. She arranges free rides to the airport for those returning home.

And with the pandemic, she has only become busier, helping those who have lost or fled their jobs, are unable to navigate border and immigration rules, or are struggling to afford masks. She has housed dozens of workers at her temple when they were unable to return to Vietnam.

“As a Vietnamese, I want to help fellow Vietnamese people in Japan. If I don’t help them, they will be undocumented and be in difficult situations, and with people out there like that, I can’t be happy myself,” she said.

Throughout the day, Vietnamese students and nearby Japanese residents come in to pray at the altar and talk with her and her staff. Daionji, which means “Temple of Great Grace and Gratitude,” sits at the top of a road that winds around houses and farm fields in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo. The temple is perpetually cold in the winter, so each nun wears at least three layers of clothes even with the space heater on.

Tri is especially mindful of giving the deceased a proper, love-filled goodbye. She works with police to identify the bodies of Vietnamese who have died alone, and arranges their funerals, cremations and the transport of their ashes back to their families in Vietnam.

“I am where I am today thanks to my experience and learnings in Japan, so I really love Japan,” she said. “I want to warmly help them in their last journey in Japan, so that they can let go of their resentment and return to Vietnam with a more positive feeling.”

Systemic shortfalls

Dang Tung Lam, 28, arrived in Japan in 2017 to work at a manufacturing company in Fukuoka, in the country’s southwest. He dreamed of working hard in the three-year intern program, saving money, learning Japanese and moving back to Vietnam to work for a Japanese company for higher pay.

But in reality, Lam lasted just four months. He earned about $863 a month — part of which he sent home to support his family — while being bullied daily by Japanese colleagues and his bosses, he said. The company took away his passport and he couldn’t leave the country. He fled and moved between part-time cleaning and manual labor jobs as an undocumented worker.

“If it’s just demanding labor, Vietnamese can persevere … but it’s the bullying that we can’t tolerate,” he said.

It became harder for Lam to find a job in the pandemic, so last year, he turned to Daionji. There, he obtained a visa to stay in Japan, a new job, and a new passport so he can one day go home and pursue his dream of opening a Japanese restaurant.

Many workers like Lam are caught in a financial and legal bind when they arrive in Japan. They are often in debt because they had to pay brokers in Vietnam, and their passports and cellphones are frequently taken away, advocates say. Under program requirements, they must maintain the same job for three to five years and can’t switch to a new company even if they face harassment or illegal working conditions.

Of the 8,124 companies that hired foreign interns, 70.8 percent were found to have labor law violations, including over safety concerns, payment problems and working hours, according to a 2020 inspection report by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

The companies are overseen by a government agency, the Organization for Technical Intern Training, but the problem is that the workers are hired by unregulated vendor companies, said Yoshihisa Saito, an associate professor at Kobe University and longtime advocate for foreign workers in Japan.

The agency declined to answer questions, but a representative pointed to a 591-page manual stating that the agency conducts annual investigations of registered companies and that violations can lead to a company’s being suspended, shut down or fined.

Yet without strong language skills, trainees struggle to ask for help — or just don’t for fear of repercussions, Saito said. For example, two Vietnamese trainees are facing charges of abandoning the corpses of their newborns after giving birth. Both women said they were afraid they would lose their jobs in the program if their company found out they had been pregnant.

“Systematically, proper education and screening really needs to be put in place, as well as a safe way for trainees to seek help,” Saito said.

In the meantime, Daionji has provided a rare safety net, he said.

Tri, the nun, has helped tens of thousands of people over the years, but some stories stick with her because she feels she couldn’t do enough.

One was a former intern with two children back in Vietnam who had fled her job and was working part time as an undocumented worker. During the pandemic, she became worried about becoming sick, and she wanted to return home to her children. Tri arranged for a car to pick her up from the temple. Two days before her scheduled pickup, the woman was struck by a car and died.

Tri retrieved her body and arranged her funeral. As Tri collected the woman’s belongings, she found a diary. In it were page upon page of prayers for her children.

“I felt really regretful that maybe things would have been different if I had been able to help her earlier,” Tri said.

The isolation often experienced by Vietnamese in Japan results from the culture clash of being an outsider in a deeply monocultural society, Tri said. She hopes her efforts inspire Japanese citizens to help create a society where foreigners — who are crucial to the country’s economy — are embraced.

“Since Japan’s population is aging and there aren’t enough young workers, Japan has no choice but to rely on foreign workers,” she said. “Foreign interns can make a huge contribution to Japanese society in the long run, so I want them to be cherished.”

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