An organization supporting foreign workers in Japan has launched a service with eight companies that aims to resolve labor issues by providing financial relief and counseling to non-Japanese employed by those firms and their business partners.

The move comes amid growing pressure on companies worldwide to perform due diligence to ensure human rights aren’t being violated as part of their business, with firms and their contractors investigating or being investigated for forced labor and other labor law violations.

The new service allows the eight companies to pool the cost of setting up necessary services for foreign workers, such as multilingual interpretation and legal advice. The firms include Toyota, Seven & I Holdings, Ajinomoto, real estate developer Mitsui Fudosan and Ryohin Keikaku Co., which operates outlets under its Muji brand.

It will provide consultation services in nine languages and help in more complex situations such as labor disputes with the employer. It will also set up a website next month to share useful information on working in Japan. The content of consultations will not be shared with the relevant companies without the consent of the individual.

The service, run by the Japan Platform for Migrant Workers Towards Responsible and Inclusive Society (JP-Mirai) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, is expected to cover up to 20,000 workers in those eight companies, which are funding the initiative.

JP-Mirai was established in compliance with the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which call on countries and companies to prevent human rights violations. The principles require businesses to establish a system for employees to file complaints.

According to an estimate jointly compiled by think tanks, Japan must boost the number of foreign workers to 6.74 million by 2040 — four times the number in 2020 — to sustain average gross domestic product growth of 1.24%.

Japan has been relying on foreign workers for years amid labor shortages in some sectors including agriculture and the construction industry.

However, the U.S. State Department’s 2021 annual report on human trafficking criticized Japan for failing to fully implement oversight of its foreign technical trainees program, leaving many of them vulnerable to labor abuses, including forced labor.