日本語

We request a verdict of “not guilty” of Vietnamese technical intern trainee, Ms. Linh, who was charged with abandoning the corpses of her babies after she gave birth to stillborn babies in isolation.

What happened to Ms. Linh? This is a challenge for all of us living in the country that convicts her. It will be possible that any women who give birth in isolation will continue to be treated like criminals.

On November 15, 2020, Vietnamese technical intern Le Thi Thuy Linh gave birth to stillborn twins alone on a tatami mat. The next morning, Ms. Linh was taken to the hospital by her employer. The doctor called the police, who arrested her as soon as she left the hospital and charged her with abandoning a corpse. She was later released on bail, but in July 2021, the Kumamoto District Court sentenced her to eight months in prison, suspended for three years. That same month, she appealed to the Fukuoka High Court, saying that she had neither abandoned nor hidden the babies.

Ms. Linh came to Japan alone in August 2018 at the age of 19 to help her mother support the family because her father was too ill to work, and has been working hard at a citrus farm in Kumamoto Prefecture. Before coming to Japan, she owed 1.5 million yen to a Vietnamese sending agency, so she sent 100,000 yen from her 120,000 yen take-home pay to Vietnam monthly and worked almost without a break for a year and a half to repay the debt. In May 2020, she found out she was pregnant, but as many female trainees are forced to return to their home countries due to pregnancy, Ms. Linh was afraid of being forced to return to her home country and could not talk to anyone about it.

On the night of the 14th, she had severe abdominal pain and gave birth to twins while suffering from pain, bleeding, loneliness and fear all night long. She was so sad when she saw the motionless babies that she laid out towels on a cardboard box she had nearby as a coffin and laid the bodies of the twins there. She named them and said, "I'm sorry, my twin babies”. May you soon be in a peaceful place.
 
She didn't abandon her babies, nor did she hide them! So why is she being charged with a crime?
Judge Takao Sugihara found Ms. Linh guilty because she did not prepare the bodies for cremation and burial in the cemetery, but we believe that Ms. Linh, who did not understand the Japanese language or the Japanese customs and laws regarding death and funerals, could only do so much in the immediate postpartum period and that she did the best she could in her position.

Slavery in the Modern World?

At present, Japan accepts nearly 400,000 technical intern trainees, whose labor supports the livelihood of many people in Japan. However, technical intern trainees are not allowed the freedom to choose their occupation, relocate their residence, or get pregnant or give birth in Japan, which should be guaranteed to them as human beings.

Nearly 80% of technical trainees are in their teens and twenties. Young technical intern trainees work at the production sites of most of the lunch boxes, fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish that are lined up in large quantities in department stores and supermarkets. When you put your hands together to say "Itadakimasu" (thank you for the food), have you ever thought about the people who are working so hard in Japan, far away from their home countries? Have you ever given even the slightest thought to those people who live so close to us? Pregnancy, childbirth, and marriage are all important things in life. It is always necessary to talk to someone about your physical and mental anxiety. We think we have created a society that does not allow people to do so.

What can we do?

Ms. Linh was reported as a criminal, and various media outlets came to the farm where she was working, and the quiet village by the sea was in turmoil. These two things have great significance.

Losing one's workplace = She will be no longer considered to be a technical intern trainee, and if she disappears, she will be considered to be in the country illegally and deported.

Loss of housing = difficulty in getting bail, and being held in detention while facing trial.

Ms. Linh still had a strong will to work. Therefore, we are looking for an emergency host that meets these two conditions. That was our first encounter with Ms. Linh. We were stunned by the technical intern training program, which did not show the slightest hint of the philosophy of international contribution. They work hard, have little time or opportunity to learn the language, and return to their home countries after three to five years as if they were invisible. When we think about this case, shouldn't the first thing we have done was to care for Linh's body and mourn the death of her babies? We can't let Linh go back to Vietnam with the unkind treatment of arrest, detention, prosecution, and conviction on her shoulders.

Please raise your voice with us!

So we do not want to end this issue by punishing Ms. Linh alone as a criminal. We believe that Ms. Lin is innocent, and we urge that the judgment of acquittal be handed down after the first trial is reversed. 

At the same time, we are also launching a paper-based signature campaign by the following five organizations We will submit them to the court together with the signatures of Change and the paper-based signatures. Therefore, to avoid duplication, please sign either this change or the paper-based petition.　　
Signature collection point: Association to support the trial of Linh, a Vietnamese technical intern
Calling organization 　
Association to Support the Trial of Vietnamese Technical Intern Linh
Kumustaka- Association for Living Together with Migrants　
Medical Corporation Seryukai, Jikei Hospital
NPO Kumamoto YWCA　　　　 　　
Defense team for Linh's criminal trial