ONE DECADE AFTER CHERNOBYL: Summing Up the Consequences of the Accident, Proceedings of an International Conference, Vienna, 8-12 April 1996, IAEA STI/PUB/1001. Kazakov V.S., Demidchik E.P., Astakhova L.N. et.al., Thyroid Cancer after Chernobyl, Nature 359, 21-22, 1992. Socalow E.L., Hashizume A., Nerishi S. et al., Thyroid Carcinoma in Man after Exposure to Ionizing Radiation, N.Engl.J.Med., 268, 406-410, 1963. Maron H., Thomas S., Saenger E., et al., Ionizing Radiation and the Induction of Clinically Significant Disease in the Human Thyroid Gland, Am.J.Med., 63, 967-978, 1997
JAPAN (Tier 2) Japan is a destination, source, and transit country formen, women, and children subjected to forced labor andsex trafficking. Male and female migrant workers from China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and otherAsian countries are sometimes subject to conditions offorced labor. Some women and children from East Asia,Southeast Asia, and in previous years, Eastern Europe,Russia, South America, and Latin America who travelto Japan for employment or fraudulent marriage are forced into prostitution. During the reporting period,there was a growth in trafficking of Japanese nationals,including foreign-born children of Japanese citizens whoacquired nationality. In addition, traffickers continued to use fraudulent marriages between foreign women and Japanese men to facilitate the entry of these women into Japan for forced prostitution. Government and NGO sources report that there was an increase in the number of children identified as victims of trafficking. Japanese organized crime syndicates (the Yakuza) are believed to play a significant role in trafficking in Japan, both directly and indirectly. Traffickers strictly control the movements of victims, using debt bondage, threats of violence or deportation, blackmail, and other coercive psychological methods to control victims. Victims of forced prostitution
sometimes face debts upon commencement of their contracts as high as $50,000 and most are required to pay employers additional fees for living expenses, medical care, and other necessities, leaving them predisposed to debt bondage. “Fines” for misbehavior added to their original debt, and the process that brothel operators used to calculate these debts was not transparent. Some of the victims identified during the reporting period were forced to work in exploitative conditions in strip clubs and hostess bars, but were reportedly not forced to have sex with clients. Japan is also a transit country for persons trafficked from East Asia to North America. Japanese men continue to be a significant source of demand for child sex tourism in Southeast Asia.
Although the Government of Japan has not officially recognized the existence of forced labor within the Industrial Trainee and Technical Internship Program (the“foreign trainee program”), the media and NGOs continue to report abuses including debt bondage, restrictions on movement, unpaid wages and overtime, fraud, and contracting workers out to different employers – elements which contribute to situations of trafficking. The majority of trainees are Chinese nationals who pay fees of more than $1,400 to Chinese brokers to apply for the program and deposits – which are now illegal – of up to $4,000 and a lien on their home. An NGO survey of Chinese trainees in Japan, conducted in late 2010, found that workers’deposits are regularly seized by the brokers if they report mistreatment or attempt to leave the program. Some trainees also reported having their passports and other travel documents taken from them and their movements controlled to prevent escape or communication.
The Government of Japan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Although Japan provided a modest grant to IOM for the repatriation of foreign victims identified in Japan, the government’s resources dedicated specifically to assist victims of trafficking were low, particularly relative to Japan’s wealth and the size of its trafficking problem. During the year,the government published a manual for law enforcement and judicial officers on identifying trafficking victims and developed a Public Awareness Roadmap to increase prevention of trafficking in Japan. The government also reported some efforts to punish and prevent trafficking of women for forced prostitution. Nonetheless, the government made inadequate efforts to address abuses in the foreign trainee program despite credible reports of mistreatment of foreign workers. Although the government took some steps to reduce practices that increase the vulnerability of these workers to forced labor, the government reported poor law enforcement against forced labor crimes and did not identify or provide protection to any victims of forced labor. In addition, Japan’s victim protection structure for forced prostitution remains weak given the lack of services dedicated specifically to victims of trafficking.
Recommendations for Japan: Dedicate more government resources to anti-trafficking efforts, including dedicatedlaw enforcement units, trafficking-specific shelters, and legal aid for victims of trafficking; consider drafting and enacting a comprehensive anti-trafficking law prohibiting all forms of trafficking and prescribing sufficiently stringentpenalties; significantly increase efforts to investigate,prosecute, and assign sufficiently stringent jail sentences to acts of forced labor, including within the foreign trainee program, and ensure that abuses reported to labor offices are referred to criminal authorities for investigation; enforce bans on deposits, punishment agreements,withholding of passports, and other practices that contribute to forced labor in the foreign trainee program; continue to increase efforts to enforce laws and stringently punish perpetrators of forced prostitution; make greater efforts to proactively investigate and, where warranted, punish government complicity in trafficking or traffickingrelated offenses; further expand and implement formal victim identification procedures and train personnel who have contact with individuals arrested for prostitution,foreign trainees, or other migrants on the use of these procedures to identify a greater number of trafficking victims; ensure that victims are not punished for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked; establish protection policies for all victims of trafficking,including male victims and victims of forced labor; ensure that protection services, including medical and legal services, are fully accessible to victims of trafficking by making them free and actively informing victims of their availability; and more aggressively investigate and, where warranted, prosecute and punish Japanese nationals who engage in child sex tourism.
Prosecution The Japanese government took modest, but overall inadequate, steps to enforce laws against trafficking during the reporting period; while the government reportedly increased its law enforcement efforts against forced prostitution, it did not report any efforts to address forced labor. Japan does not have a comprehensive anti-trafficking law, but Japan’s 2005 amendment to its criminal code, which prohibits the buying and selling of persons, and a variety of other criminal code articles and laws, could be used to prosecute some trafficking offenses. However,it is unclear if the existing legal framework is sufficiently comprehensive to criminalize allsevere forms of trafficking in persons. These laws prescribe punishments ranging from one to 10 years’ imprisonment, which are sufficiently stringent and generally commensurate with penalties prescribed for other serious crimes. During the reporting period, the government reported 19 investigations for offenses reported to be related to trafficking, resulting in the arrest of 24 individuals under a variety of laws, including immigration and anti-prostitution statutes.
Given the incomplete nature of the government’s data, itis not clear how many of these involve actual trafficking offenses. The government convicted 14 individuals of various trafficking-related offenses, though most were convicted under statutes other than those for human trafficking crimes. Of these 14 convicted offenders, six received non-suspended jail sentences ranging from 2.5 to 4.5 years plus fines, six received suspended jail sentences of approximately one to two years plus fines, and one was ordered to only pay a fine. Ten cases were not prosecuted for lack of evidence. These law enforcement efforts against sex forms of trafficking are an increase from the five convictions reported last year. The National Police Agency
(NPA), Ministry of Justice, Bureau of Immigration, and the Public Prosecutor’s office regularly trained officers on trafficking investigation and prosecution techniques, including training programs conducted by IOM and NGOs. In July 2010, the government distributed a 10-page manual to assist law enforcement, judicial and other government officers in identifying and investigating trafficking offenses and implementing victim protection measures. Nonetheless, Japan made inadequate efforts to criminally investigate and punish acts of forced labor. Article 5 of Japan’s Labor Standards Law prohibits forced labor and prescribes a penalty of one to 10 years’ imprisonment or a fine ranging from $2,400 to $36,000, but is generally limited to acts committed by the employer. A July 2010 government ordinance bans the practices of requiring deposits from applicants to the foreign trainee program and imposing fines for misbehavior or early termination.
Despite the availability of these prohibitions, however, authorities failed to arrest, prosecute, convict, or sentence to jail any individual for forced labor or other illegal practices contributing to forced labor in the foreign trainee program. The government investigated only three cases of suspected forced labor during the reporting period. Most cases of abuse taking place under the foreign trainee program are settled out of court or through administrative or civil hearings, resulting in penalties which are not sufficiently stringent or reflective of the heinous nature of the crime, such as fines. For example, in November 2010, the Labor Standards Office determined that a 31-year-old Chinese trainee officially died due to overwork; although he had worked over 80 hours per week for 12 months preceding his death without full compensation, the company received only a $6,000 fine as punishment and no individual was sentenced to imprisonment or otherwise held criminally responsible for his death. In addition, the government failed to address government complicity in trafficking offenses. Although corruption remains a serious concern in the large and socially accepted entertainment industry in Japan, which includes the prostitution industry, the government did not report investigations, arrests, prosecutions, convictions, or jail sentences against any official for trafficking relatedcomplicity during the reporting period.
Protection The Government of Japan identified more victims of sex trafficking than last year, but its overall efforts to protect victims of trafficking, particularly victims of forced labor,remained weak. During the reporting period, 43 victims of trafficking for sexual purposes were identified, including a male victim – an increase from the 17 victims reported last year, though similar to the number identified in 2008 (37),and lower than the number of victims identified in each of the years from 2005 to 2007. Japanese authorities produced a manual entitled, “How to Treat Human Trafficking Cases: Measures Regarding the Identification of Victims” that was distributed to government agencies in July 2010 to identify victims of trafficking. The manual’s focus,however, appears to be primarily on identifying the immigration status of foreign migrants and their methods of entering Japan, rather than identifying indicators of nonconsensual exploitation of the migrants. It is also unclear if this manual led to the identification of any victims and whether it was used widely throughout the country. Some victimswere reportedly arrested or detained before authoritiesidentified them as trafficking victims. Japan failed to identify any victims of forced labor during the reporting period despite ample evidence that many workers in the foreign trainee program face abuses indicative of forced labor. The government has no specific protection policy for victims of forced labor and it has never identified a victim of labor trafficking. Moreover, services provided to identified victims of trafficking for forced prostitution were inadequate. Japan continues to lack dedicated shelters for victims of trafficking. Of the identified victims, 32 received care at government shelters for domestic violence victims – Women’s Consulting Centers (WCCs) – but these victims reportedly faced restrictions on movement outside of these multi-purpose shelters, and inadequate services inside them. Due to limitations on these shelters’ space and language capabilities, WCCs sometimes referred victims to government-subsidized NGO shelters. For instance, due to the government’s continued lack of protection services for male victims of trafficking, the one male victim identified during the reporting period received services at an NGO shelter. IOM provided protection to 20 foreign victims of trafficking during the reporting period with government funding. Although the government paid for victims’psychological services and related interpretation costs in the WCC shelters, some victims at NGO shelters did not receive this care. A government program exists to pay for all medical services incurred while a victim resides at the WCC, but the system for administering these services is not well organized and, as a result, some victims of trafficking did not receive all available care. The government-funded Legal Support Center provides pro bono legal services to destitute victims of crime, including trafficking victims, but information about available service was not always provided to victims in the government and NGO shelters. If a victim is a child, the WCC works with a local Child Guidance Center to provide shelter and services to the victim; the government reported that one victim was assisted in this manner during the reporting period. Furthermore, while authorities reported encouraging victims’ participation in the investigation and prosecution of their traffickers, victims were not provided with any incentives for participation, such as the ability to work or otherwise generate income. In addition, the relative confinement of the WCC shelters and the inability of victims to work led most victims to seek repatriation. A long-term residency visa is available to persons identified as trafficking victims who fear returning to their home country, but only one person has ever applied for or received this benefit.
Prevention The Japanese government made limited efforts to prevent trafficking in persons during the reporting period. The Inter-ministerial Liaison Committee continued to meet, chaired by the cabinet secretary, and agreed on a “Public Awareness Roadmap” and released posters and distributed brochures aimed at raising awareness of trafficking. More than 33,000 posters and 50,000 leaflets were distributed to local governments, police stations, community centers, universities, immigration offices, and airports. NGOs, however, reported that this campaign had little effect and failed to reach the consumers of commercial sexual services. The Immigration Bureau conducted an online campaign to raise awareness of trafficking and used flyers to encourage local immigration offices to be alert for indications of trafficking. In July 2010, the government amended the rules of the foreign trainee program to allow first-year participants access to the Labor Standards Office and to ban the use of deposits and penalties for misbehavior or early termination, in order to prevent conditions of forced labor within this program and provide increased legal redress to participants of the program. The government did not report its efforts to enforce the ban on deposits and it is unclear whether the new rules contributed to a reduction in the number of cases of misconduct committed by the organizations that receive the interns. NGO sources report that brokers have instructed participants to deny the existence of these deposits or“punishment agreements” to Japanese authorities. The
government continued to fund a number of anti-trafficking projects around the world. For years, a significant number of Japanese men have traveled to other Asian countries, particularly the Philippines, Cambodia, and Thailand, to engage in sex with children. Japan has the legal authority to prosecute Japanese nationals who engage in child sex tourism abroad and arrested one man under this law in February 2011; a total of eight persons have been convicted under this law since2002. Japan is not a party to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.
IAEA whitewashes worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl
By William Whitlow
4 June 2011
On June 1, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a preliminary report on the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The report is a whitewash, exonerating the Tokyo Electrical Power Company (TEPCO) and the Japanese government of blame. Its bland language is an attempt to suppress discussion and protect the nuclear industry from scrutiny. The report comes as two more workers at the plant were found to have exceeded maximum doses of radiation. Two male workers, one in his 30s and the other in his 40s, have been exposed to more than the 250 millisieverts level legally allowed for nuclear workers in Japan. The government raised the limit from its previous level of 100 millisieverts after the disaster. Exposure to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation is thought to increase the lifetime risk of developing cancers. Previously, three workers were found to have been exposed to over 1000 millisieverts after working in flooded tunnels under the Fukushima plant. This new revelation points once again to the dangers faced by workers on the site. The full extent of the workforce’s exposure to radiation is not known. Workers involved in the recovery operations are still not subject to routine testing. Some 7,800 workers have been employed at Fukushima since the disaster, but only 1,800 have been checked for radiation exposure, according to the newspaper Asahi Shimbun. The two men involved in the most recent incident both worked in the control rooms of reactor 3 and reactor 4. They had not been working in the flooded tunnels. Their exposure to radiation points to high levels of contamination throughout the facility. They were subject to internal exposure as a result of breathing or ingesting contaminated material. The site is covered in radioactive dust. Many workers have been sleeping on site and taking their meals in potentially contaminated areas; few of them have protective clothing. It is doubtful that many of the contract workers on site have been warned of the risks. The full extent of the contamination is only gradually becoming clear. Researchers from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan have found levels of contamination in soil samples beyond the 20-kilometre exclusion zone higher than those in the “dead zone” around Chernobyl. One site about 25 kilometres northwest of the Fukushima nuclear plant produced soil samples with radiation from cesium-137 exceeding 5 million becquerels per square metre. Others were lower, at 1.48 million becquerels per square metre. But all were high enough to make the land uninhabitable and unfit for growing crops or raising livestock. Twenty-five years after the Chernobyl accident the land is still unsafe. Belarus, which received 80 percent of the fallout from Chernobyl, still has one fifth of its agricultural land that is unusable, which is costing the Belarus economy $700 million a year. The risks in Japan are greater because the population density is greater than in Belarus. Two million people are thought to have been affected by the fallout in Belarus. But in Japan the population is more than seven times greater than in Belarus. The results of the soil survey show that dangerous levels of contamination have spread beyond the official exclusion established by the Japanese government around the Fukushima plant. Levels of contamination inside the exclusion zone are not known because only government scientists are allowed access. They have not published the results of any tests on soil contamination. When asked for a comment about the figures, Tetsuya Terasawa for TEPCO said that the figures for soil contamination were in line with those found after a nuclear bomb test that disperses plutonium. Contamination of soil over such a wide area is the result of atmospheric contamination resulting from the explosions that took place in the reactor buildings. At the same time, waterborne contamination is continuing. The water that has flooded the trenches and underground tunnels at the Fukushima plant is thought to be more heavily contaminated than that released into the atmosphere. The water is reaching maximum depths and is expected to start overflowing within the next few days. Alternative storage and treatment facilities have still not been completed. A decontamination plant is unlikely to be ready until June 15 and an underground storage facility for contaminated water is scheduled to be completed by mid-August. Even when it is finished, the storage unit will be inadequate. There are already 105 million litres of radioactive water on the site and the storage tank will take only 10 million litres. Water levels are rising because Japan is in its rainy season. Typhoon Songda, which recently passed through the area, increased the levels of water at the Fukushima plant dramatically. “We may have between five and seven days before the water levels reach the top of the trenches,” Hikaru Kuroda, a TEPCO spokesperson said. The Bloomberg news agency was sceptical of this projected timeframe and suggested the overflow could begin as early as June 6. Quite apart from the risk of overflow, radioactive water is still leaking into the sea. By April 5, 10 million litres of contaminated water had been dumped into the sea. Efforts to fix a leak have not been successful. Fish in the waters off the plant have been found to contain dangerously high levels of caesium. Nuclear experts have criticised TEPCO’s response to the issue of water contamination. “The risk of overflow is as serious as the meltdown of reactor fuel rods that’s already happened,” Tetsuo Ito, head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute at Kinki University, told Bloomberg. “TEPCO should’ve acknowledged this risk weeks ago and could’ve taken any urgent measures.” The water currently accumulating on the site is heavily contaminated. Junichi Matsumoto of TEPCO told a press conference in Tokyo that the level of radioactivity was estimated to be 720,000 terabecquerels. Presumably this huge figure applies to the total amount of water on the site, but is not precise enough to be of scientific value. The IAEA report has been produced against the backdrop of deepening crisis. But everything in it aims to calm public fears and give the impression that the situation is under control and conditions at Fukushima are stable. The reality is far from this. Launching the preliminary report of a 12-nation fact-finding team, Denis Flory, deputy director of the IAEA, said that his primary concern was to rebuild public confidence in nuclear power following the disaster at Fukushima. He told a press conference that there was a need for new safety standards internationally, but that this would remain the responsibility of national governments. The report praised the openness of the Japanese government and TEPCO in “answering the many questions of the mission to assist the world in learning lessons to improve nuclear safety.” Yet even the Japanese government has criticised TEPCO for withholding information. The report stressed that there had been no recorded health effects from the release of radioactive material from Fukushima. It states: “To date, no health effects have been reported in any person as a result of radiation exposure from the nuclear accident.” But the health effects are unlikely to become clear for several years to come. The impact of the Chernobyl disaster is only now becoming measurable in terms of excess deaths. The health of workers on site was being safeguarded by “highly-professional back up”, the report claims. This claim is belied by the fact that two more workers have been found to have been exposed to high levels of radiation. Since the majority of the workers have not been tested it is impossible to know what the level of exposure has been for most of those working on the site. At the report press launch, Denis Flory, deputy director general of the IAEA Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, admitted that the fuel in one reactor had melted. The preliminary report merely refers to “severe damage of the fuel”. But TEPCO, which owns the stricken Fukushima plant, admitted last month that a meltdown took place in three of the reactors soon after the tsunami hit the plant, knocking out emergency power systems. A triple meltdown has never happened at any other nuclear facility. Three days after the crisis began the temperature in number 2 reactor is now thought to have reached 2700ºC, causing 54 percent of the core to melt. According to World Nuclear News, a conservative industry news source, 94 percent of the fuel in reactor 3 may have slumped to the bottom of the reactor containment vessel by March 14. In unit 1, the entire core is thought to have melted. The damage to all three reactors would account for the high levels of radiation detected in the water that has flooded the site as a result of emergency cooling efforts. Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan admitted in an interview with the Financial Times that TEPCO had underestimated the risk of a meltdown at Fukushima. But the IAEA has nothing but praise for the company. The IAEA report is a whitewash rather than a serious attempt to investigate the causes of the Fukushima disaster and the extent of the developing danger that now exists. TEPCO say that they expect to be able to reduce contamination levels within the next three months. Nuclear experts are sceptical of this scenario. William Ostendorff, a member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, speaking to the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that he thought the chances of success were six or seven out of 10. “The problem is that too much policy has been focused on protecting TEPCO and not enough on the public”, said Dr. Kiyoshi Kurakawa, who was previously a Japanese government health adviser. Time magazine, a publication not usually noted for its criticisms of big business, described the attempts to drop water on the overheating reactors from helicopters as “designed more for PR than practicality”. The full IAEA report will be given to the Ministerial Nuclear Safety Conference that meets in Vienna at the end of June.
ベラルーシにおける小児甲状腺ガンの地域分布（1986～1996年：508件）
小児甲状腺ガン患者の事故時の年齢分布
