The United Nations has criticized the Japanese government for exploiting low-income workers at the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant and exposing them to unacceptable levels of radioactivity while they conduct "cleanup" work at the site.
In a breaking news story on August 18, the UN special rapporteurs revealed that workers suffering financial hardship were being coerced into working at the site where they were then improperly protected and effectively lied to about the amount of radiation exposure they received on the job, multiple news sources reported.
In a damning report, the UN experts said that tens of thousands were affected, some of whom are homeless or migrant workers with no other employment options. They wrote that workers are "often exposed to a myriad of human rights abuses, forced to make the abhorrent choice between their health and income, and their plight is invisible to most consumers and policymakers with the power to change it."
This is a major black eye and exposé that Japanese authorities must now confront even as they continue to indulge in shameless propaganda suggesting that evacuees can return and that 2020 Olympic events planned for Fukushima will not expose athletes and spectators to radioactivity.