Convict Labor - the Mitsui Coal Mine

Quelle:  The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus
Volume 15 | Issue 1 | Number 3 | Jan 2017

Convict Labor and Its Commemoration:
the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine Experience

Miyamoto Takashi

Abstract

"The Miike Coal Mine, extending across Omuta and Arao in Kyushu, was an engine for economic growth in Japan until the nation’s defeat in World War II. In 1873, the Meiji government introduced convict labor in the mine. This arrangement continued after the government handed the mine over to a private company, the Mitsui Coal Mine. It was not until 1931, in the wake of the International Labor Organization’s 1930 Forced Labor Convention, that convict labor was terminated. The history of convicts in the mine was not widely known for decades until a local group started restoring memories of it in the 1960s. This paper examines the social and discursive environment in which the recovered history of convict labor evolved. ..."


Download pdf









Japan's Dark Heritage: alle Beiträge