TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested 4 girls on suspicion of soliciting prostitution within the Kabukicho red-light district of Shinjuku Ward.
Though intercourse tourism is taken into account a problem, the suspects on this case had been seemingly defrauding vacationers as a substitute of getting intercourse with them for cash, experiences Jiji Press (July 24).
Between May 14 and June 19, Miyu Aoyagi, 20, and the opposite three suspects are suspected of concentrating on overseas vacationers for prostitution within the space round Okubo Park.
According to police, the suspects stood and waited for patrons within the space, which features a row of affection motels, in a follow known as tachinbo.
All 4 have admitted to violating the Anti-Prostitution Law. Aoyagi stated, “I engaged in prostitution only with foreigners and elderly men who I believed were definitely not plainclothes police officers. I created group chats with other girls to share information about police officers cracking down on them.”
For the latter, she shared pictures of investigators’ faces and the patrol standing across the park inside the group, which has 26 members.
The funds had been used for playing, to cowl dwelling bills and pay for host membership payments.
“My wallet was stolen”
Through June, police had arrested 75 folks for soliciting clients for prostitution in Kabukicho this 12 months. That determine is 40 greater than that over the identical interval final 12 months.
Among their clients are overseas vacationers, who’re more and more trying to purchase intercourse round Okubo Park — and so they had higher be on their guard.
According to police, Aoyagi made about 110 million yen over the past two years. However, police imagine lots of these positive factors got here from fraud.
Between October final 12 months and June, police obtained round 50 calls from clients. “My wallet was stolen at a hotel,” one stated. “I paid but the deed wasn’t done and then [a woman] called her accomplices and they threatened me,” one other stated.
“Pay me 10,000 yen first”
Another suspect is Yuka Uchiyama. Just earlier than her arrest, a digicam for TBS News caught her placing money she obtained from a person into her bag and disappearing into the night time.
Here’s how she operated: After negotiating a deal — say, for 10,000 yen — with a overseas buyer, they each go to a resort.
“Pay me 10,000 yen first,” she’s going to say. After receiving the quantity, she’ll announce, “I came to the hotel for 10,000 yen. This is the end.” She’ll then head for the door.
“Unique Japanese scene”
However, many ladies really engaged in intercourse with overseas vacationers for cash. The discover out why overseas vacationers choose to choose up streetwalkers round Okubo Park, TBS News conducts a number of interviews.
“There is a YouTuber who introduces that there is a street in Kabukicho where you can have sexual relations [with women],” a Korean man says.
A person from Finland exhibits the community a TikTok video. He says that he got here throughout the video after it was really useful on the app.
“There are quite a lot [of these videos],” he says. “I think it’s a unique Japanese scene.”
A person from France acknowledges that he went to a resort with a lady. He says, “This is the best place.”
Sex tourism
Kazunori Yamai, of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, raised the difficulty of overseas vacationers visiting for the aim of prostitution within the Diet
“Foreign men come to Tokyo for sex tourism,” stated the House of Representatives member. “Is this situation really something we can just ignore?”
The Anti-Prostitution Law prohibits prostitution, however there aren’t any penalties for many who purchase intercourse.
Kazuna Kanajiri is the director of PAPS (Organization for Pornography and Sexual Exploitation Survivors). She says that the regulation must be revised.
“[Under the current circumstances] the buyers can approach women as much as they want without being punished If there are no buyers, [women] will not be forced to sell sex. We need legal penalties as soon as possible,” she says.