After years of campaigning by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC)-RENGO, the Bill on the Strengthening of Related Laws for the Conclusion of the Convention on the Abolition of Forced Labor (C105) (hereafter, "the Bill") was approved and enacted at the Plenary Session of the Upper House of the Japanese Diet on June 9th. With this development, Japan is one step closer to the ratification of C105.
In his statement, Yasunobu Aihara, General Secretary of JTUC-RENGO, expressed his sincere respect to all those involved in the process leading up to the enactment of the Bill. He said, “ILO Convention No. 105 is one of the Eight Core Labor Standards Conventions, adopted in 1957, that all ILO member States are required to ratify and has thus far been ratified by 176 of the 187 member states. However, despite being a founding member of the ILO, Japan has for many years had the dishonor of not ratifying the Convention. We therefore highly evaluate the enactment of the Bill as a major step toward ratification of the Convention.”
Meanwhile, Shoya Yoshida, General Secretary of the ITUC-Asia Pacific, congratulates JTUC-RENGO for its successful campaigning for the ratification of C190 by Japanese government. He said, “Forced labour is one of worst forms of violating human rights and impairing human dignity. To see an end to forced labour, we further need to work for ratification of ILO Conventions No. 29 (Forced Labour Convention, C29) and C105.”
For universal ratification, C29 requires eight more ratifications – of which, seven are from Asia and the Pacific region. Meanwhile, C105 needs ratifications from 11 countries, which are all from Asia and the Pacific.
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