A/HRC/17/33/Add.3 40. At the time of the Special Rapporteur’s visit, since no effective system was in place to monitor the situation of trainees and technical interns and offer them protection and referral mechanisms, they remained particularly vulnerable and became victims of serious abuses. 41. The Special Rapporteur notes that the revised Immigration Control Act of July 2009, which came into force in July 2010, introduces a number of measures to increase protection of trainees. It introduces a new status of “Technical Intern Training” and extends the applicability of labour laws to trainees. It also obliges receiving companies to provide specific on-the-job training to the trainees and prohibits collection of guarantee money by dispatching organizations and receiving companies. Furthermore, according to the Government, the Labour Standards Inspection Bodies provide more rigorous inspection and administrative guidance to receiving companies to ensure their compliance with labour laws and regulations. They may refer serious labour law violations for prosecution; 30 such cases were reported in 2009. However, the structure of the programme effectively remains the same, and does not introduce a mechanism through which trainees can directly have access to an effective protection system. D. Lack of interventions by the judiciary and police 42. The Special Rapporteur heard recurring complaints about the fact that the judiciary does not recognize migrants’ rights under national legislation applicable to the given circumstance, but instead favours Japanese nationals. This is the case when Japanese companies adopt discriminatory behaviour against migrant workers or when Japanese men are violent with their foreign spouse or children. 43. The Special Rapporteur was also informed by some migrants that the police in many instances refuse to address complaints submitted by migrants or which relate to conflicts between migrants, including complaints by foreign women on domestic violence. E. Limited access to housing 44. Discriminatory policies and behaviour by both private individuals and public authorities with regard to migrants’ access to housing have been reported to the Special Rapporteur. For example, it was reported that the Aichi Prefecture has a policy of limiting the access of migrants and their families to a large public housing complex (about 3,000 inhabitants) called Homigaoka in the periphery of Toyota. The Special Rapporteur regrets that the Prefecture decided to limit the number of applications for apartments in this housing complex, despite the fact that there are vacancies. This created an unfortunate situation where Brazilian families having lost their employment with the economic crisis had to leave the companies’ dormitory but had no access to the public housing complex which is significantly cheaper than private accommodation in Japan. F. Lack of avenues for regularization of irregular migrants 45. According to statistics provided by the Government, around 90,000 migrants who have overstayed their residence permit live in Japan. In addition, another around 20,000 are said to have illegally entered in the country. 46. Japan has established 27 categories of residence permits, which reflect its policy of accepting only migrant workers in professional or technical fields and those with family- or blood-based linkage with Japanese nationals, with a few exceptions of specific categories such as students, trainees and interns. Out of the categories based on the performance of 11