Chapter 3 explores the ways that accounts of foreign labor migrants’ suffering shaped Japan’s counter–human trafficking efforts by considering how and to what ends these accounts motivated Japanese government officials to comply with UN protocols. The chapter draws on interviews with Japanese government officials, US embassy staff, and NGO and embassy caseworkers. It examines, first, how caseworkers circulated accounts of migrants’ suffering in hopes of prompting government action. It then considers how and to what ends government officials were personally and professionally affected by these accounts. The chapter shows that although US and Japanese government officials were moved by them, they were not affected in the ways that caseworkers had hoped; personal positioning, work responsibilities, and political commitments factored into officials’ responses to migrant suffering. The chapter argues that affect differentially shapes the interpretation of human rights norms, sometimes undercutting these norms even as they appear to be received.