Ex-Vietnamese Intern Acquitted in Newborn Abandonment Case in Japan

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Japan’s court on Friday acquitted a former Vietnamese technical trainee of abandoning the bodies of newborns she gave birth to at home in 2020, in a case that highlighted the strain pregnant foreign trainees in Japan faced.

The Supreme Court overturned the verdicts of Le Thi Thuy Linh, 24, who received a suspended jail sentence of three months by two lower courts last year, ruling that her action did not constitute corpse abandonment.

Le Thi Thuy Linh, 24, was working as a trainee with Japan’s technical training program when she gave birth to twin boys at her home in Kumamoto Prefecture in November 2020, Kyodo News reported.

Linh had concealed her pregnancy for fear of being deported.

She gave birth at home after experiencing abdominal pain, but the babies died shortly after birth. Linh then wrapped them in towels and placed them in a cardboard box, along with an apology letter, which she left on a shelf in her room.

Her childbirth came to light when she came to the hospital the following day with abdominal pain, where she was detained.

Previously, the Fukuoka High Court had ruled that Linh’s actions of placing her deceased newborns in a box and leaving it on a shelf in her home constituted illegal abandonment of corpses.

However, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that such actions did not constitute illegal corpse abandonment because they are “not considered incompatible with customary burial practices,” according to local reports.

Linh told the court that she had planned to hold a funeral for her deceased newborns but was unsure how to proceed. Her defense said the box was only temporary and that Linh did “the best she could do for a woman who had given birth alone in a foreign country.”

“I am happy from the bottom of my heart. I hope Japan will change into a society that understands the concerns of pregnant trainees and women so they can give birth with ease,” she said following the ruling.

Her case had gained traction, with more than 90,000 Japanese supporters and trainees signing a petition calling for her acquittal.

A survey conducted by Japan’s Immigration Services Agency revealed that 26.5 percent of foreign trainees said they had been warned by supervisory or mediation agencies that they will risk losing their jobs in Japan or being deported if they became pregnant, The Japan News reported.