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Japan, Easygoing Till Now, Plans Sex Traffic Crackdown
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: February 16, 2005
TOKYO, Feb. 14 - After years of denying it had a problem with trafficking in humans, Japan is now putting the finishing touches on a law that would make the practice illegal in this country and help foreigners forced into the sex industry here.
In the months to come, the new law, along with programs to assist victims testifying against traffickers, could begin to stanch the illegal flow of women into one of the world's biggest destinations for foreign prostitutes.
In Japan, the foreign women who are victims of trafficking end up working everywhere from Tokyo's sprawling red-light districts to rural areas unfamiliar to most foreigners. They stand on street corners and sit behind glass windows; they serve as sex performers or hostesses at clubs outside of which they are expected to date customers.
A 28-year-old Colombian woman, who spent four years working as a prostitute in Japan, mostly to repay $45,000 she owed criminals who sold and bought her, finally fled to her embassy here late last year. Having given testimony that could help arrest her traffickers, she now waits for authorization from immigration officials to return to Medellín, Colombia, to be reunited with her 12-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.
"We shouldn't be treated as criminals to be deported out of Japan, but as victims," she said in an interview at the Colombian Embassy.
Starting in March, the government is expected to severely restrict the number of entertainer visas granted, a category that has allowed the entry of, and sometimes trafficking in, women with dubious skills as entertainers. The number of such visas granted Filipinos alone, now 80,000 annually, could be slashed to 8,000.
But advocates for trafficking victims are watching cautiously. They say the government seemed ambivalent about addressing this problem, which they describe as a form of modern slavery, and began taking serious steps only after American pressure.
John Miller, director of the United States State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said the Japanese authorities were skeptical about the problem one year ago.
"We had some frank and candid discussions, and there was a lot of tussle back and forth," Mr. Miller said. "In the course of the succeeding months, there was a turnaround."
"But the final result is not in," he added. "We don't know whether the proposed law will lead to real change and whether these antitrafficking programs will be funded. Nonetheless, the foundation seems to be in the process of being laid."
Japan, which signed the 2002 United Nations protocol against human trafficking but could not ratify it without a law against it, has long been known for its lax attitudes on the issue. In June, the State Department placed it on a watch list in a report that ranks governments' efforts to fight human trafficking. It was the only developed nation on the list.
In Japan, some women come knowing they will work in the sex industry. But few are aware that they will incur huge debts to traffickers, who typically confiscate their passports, restrict their movements and sometimes sell them to criminals.
Japan has always taken a businesslike attitude toward the sex industry, regarding it as necessary, and not necessarily evil. The Japanese government organized Asian sex slaves for its soldiers during World War II and brothels for American soldiers during the postwar occupation.
Today, the Japanese authorities take a laissez-faire attitude. At the main crossroads in the Shibuya district here, the equivalent of Times Square, touts openly solicit young women for the sex trade. Japanese schoolgirls meet older men in a widespread practice euphemistically called "compensated dating." The sex industry remains a part of the business culture, as was shown in 2003 when an Osaka company organized a three-day sex party with 500 prostitutes in Zhuhai, a city in southern China. The party infuriated the Chinese, especially because it ended on Sept. 18, the anniversary of Japan's invasion of China in 1931.
For the first nine months of 2004, Japan's National Police Agency recorded 46 cases of human trafficking, and arrested 12 brokers on immigration or other charges. But the figures hide the problem's true magnitude, because most cases are never reported, according to diplomats, victims' advocates and the Japanese authorities.
Victims are said to number in the thousands, with the three largest sources being Thailand, Colombia and the Philippines.
The Colombian Embassy estimates that 3,500 Colombian women work as prostitutes in Japan. How many were brought here by traffickers is unclear. But the number of women fleeing to the embassy - more than 60 last year - suggested the enormity of the problem to Francisco J. Sierra when he took over as ambassador two years ago.
When Mr. Sierra approached the Japanese Justice and Foreign Ministries, each said it was the other ministry's responsibility, he said, adding, "They were evading this topic."
Mr. Sierra attributed the lack of attention to a general permissiveness toward prostitution, saying, "Normal people in Japan don't think it's a problem."
Yoko Yoshida, a lawyer for the Japan Network Against Trafficking in Persons, a private organization, said many Japanese women do not stop their husbands from hiring prostitutes. "If the husbands really fall in love with the foreign women, that would be a problem," she said. "But as long as that doesn't happen, there is little sense that these foreign women are human beings like them."
Each month the Thai Embassy here receives about 20 forged passports confiscated from women trying to enter Japan illegally, said Chaturont Chaiyakam, a consul at the embassy. Most of those entering know they will work as prostitutes, but, once here, are kept in servitude and saddled with debts averaging $50,000, he said.
"They may take years to repay the debts," Mr. Chaiyakam said. "Or sometimes a Japanese customer will pay the debt and acquire the girl."
Motohisa Suzuki, the official coordinating the government's new antitrafficking campaign at the prime minister's cabinet office, said the Japanese had already started taking measures against trafficking, using criminal and labor laws.
In addition to a new antitrafficking law that will punish offenders, revisions of immigration laws will exempt victims without proper papers from being deported so that they can cooperate in investigations against traffickers, Mr. Suzuki said. Until recently, the women - even those few willing to testify against traffickers - were deported immediately.
How many of those with entertainment visas end up as trafficking victims and are coerced into prostitution is unclear, Mr. Suzuki said, but he added that the visa "offered a tool for human trafficking." About 70 percent of them end up doing work other than entertainment, including working as bar hostesses, he said.
But Joji Imai, president of the Association of Japanese Promoters Recruiting Foreign Entertainers, said cases of prostitution were isolated. "Many of the customers who like to patronize clubs with foreign entertainers are interested in learning foreign languages or discovering foreign cultures," Mr. Imai said. "They enjoy different cultures, such as Filipinos' cheerfulness."
Koki Kobayashi, a lawmaker in the governing Liberal Democratic Party, said the visas allowed Filipinos to earn good wages and support their families back home. "It is Japanese economic aid," he said. "Why is only Japan criticized?" he added. "I just can't help thinking that the Japanese government is targeting innocent people just because it has been told to do something by the U.S."
The 28-year-old Colombian woman waiting to return home was approached about working in Japan - as a waitress - four years ago by a Colombian woman in Medellín, she said. But three hours after arriving in Tokyo, she was dropped off in a red-light area, Shin Okubo, and taught four Japanese phrases: "Good evening. Where are you going? Let's go to the hotel. Twenty thousand yen," or $200.
She had to hand over $80 a night to two Japanese criminals and make regular payments on a $35,000 debt to her Colombian traffickers, allowing her to send home only $300 a month. Her passport was taken. She was largely confined in her off hours to a small apartment with other Colombian women.
After she had repaid all but $5,000 of the debt, she was sold to one of the Japanese criminals, who demanded an additional $5,000. She repaid the Japanese, but then went into hiding. She worked by herself for six months to buy a plane ticket home.
Deported from Japan, she went back to Colombia, with $130 left.
But after only three days in Colombia, one of the Colombian traffickers called her at home, saying, "You still owe me $5,000." He threatened to kill her children unless she returned to Japan and worked off the debt. A few weeks later, holding a forged passport that cost her yet another $5,000, she was back in Japan.
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: February 16, 2005
TOKYO, Feb. 14 - After years of denying it had a problem with trafficking in humans, Japan is now putting the finishing touches on a law that would make the practice illegal in this country and help foreigners forced into the sex industry here.
In the months to come, the new law, along with programs to assist victims testifying against traffickers, could begin to stanch the illegal flow of women into one of the world's biggest destinations for foreign prostitutes.
In Japan, the foreign women who are victims of trafficking end up working everywhere from Tokyo's sprawling red-light districts to rural areas unfamiliar to most foreigners. They stand on street corners and sit behind glass windows; they serve as sex performers or hostesses at clubs outside of which they are expected to date customers.
A 28-year-old Colombian woman, who spent four years working as a prostitute in Japan, mostly to repay $45,000 she owed criminals who sold and bought her, finally fled to her embassy here late last year. Having given testimony that could help arrest her traffickers, she now waits for authorization from immigration officials to return to Medellín, Colombia, to be reunited with her 12-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.
"We shouldn't be treated as criminals to be deported out of Japan, but as victims," she said in an interview at the Colombian Embassy.
Starting in March, the government is expected to severely restrict the number of entertainer visas granted, a category that has allowed the entry of, and sometimes trafficking in, women with dubious skills as entertainers. The number of such visas granted Filipinos alone, now 80,000 annually, could be slashed to 8,000.
But advocates for trafficking victims are watching cautiously. They say the government seemed ambivalent about addressing this problem, which they describe as a form of modern slavery, and began taking serious steps only after American pressure.
John Miller, director of the United States State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said the Japanese authorities were skeptical about the problem one year ago.
"We had some frank and candid discussions, and there was a lot of tussle back and forth," Mr. Miller said. "In the course of the succeeding months, there was a turnaround."
"But the final result is not in," he added. "We don't know whether the proposed law will lead to real change and whether these antitrafficking programs will be funded. Nonetheless, the foundation seems to be in the process of being laid."
Japan, which signed the 2002 United Nations protocol against human trafficking but could not ratify it without a law against it, has long been known for its lax attitudes on the issue. In June, the State Department placed it on a watch list in a report that ranks governments' efforts to fight human trafficking. It was the only developed nation on the list.
In Japan, some women come knowing they will work in the sex industry. But few are aware that they will incur huge debts to traffickers, who typically confiscate their passports, restrict their movements and sometimes sell them to criminals.
Japan has always taken a businesslike attitude toward the sex industry, regarding it as necessary, and not necessarily evil. The Japanese government organized Asian sex slaves for its soldiers during World War II and brothels for American soldiers during the postwar occupation.
Today, the Japanese authorities take a laissez-faire attitude. At the main crossroads in the Shibuya district here, the equivalent of Times Square, touts openly solicit young women for the sex trade. Japanese schoolgirls meet older men in a widespread practice euphemistically called "compensated dating." The sex industry remains a part of the business culture, as was shown in 2003 when an Osaka company organized a three-day sex party with 500 prostitutes in Zhuhai, a city in southern China. The party infuriated the Chinese, especially because it ended on Sept. 18, the anniversary of Japan's invasion of China in 1931.
For the first nine months of 2004, Japan's National Police Agency recorded 46 cases of human trafficking, and arrested 12 brokers on immigration or other charges. But the figures hide the problem's true magnitude, because most cases are never reported, according to diplomats, victims' advocates and the Japanese authorities.
Victims are said to number in the thousands, with the three largest sources being Thailand, Colombia and the Philippines.
The Colombian Embassy estimates that 3,500 Colombian women work as prostitutes in Japan. How many were brought here by traffickers is unclear. But the number of women fleeing to the embassy - more than 60 last year - suggested the enormity of the problem to Francisco J. Sierra when he took over as ambassador two years ago.
When Mr. Sierra approached the Japanese Justice and Foreign Ministries, each said it was the other ministry's responsibility, he said, adding, "They were evading this topic."
Mr. Sierra attributed the lack of attention to a general permissiveness toward prostitution, saying, "Normal people in Japan don't think it's a problem."
Yoko Yoshida, a lawyer for the Japan Network Against Trafficking in Persons, a private organization, said many Japanese women do not stop their husbands from hiring prostitutes. "If the husbands really fall in love with the foreign women, that would be a problem," she said. "But as long as that doesn't happen, there is little sense that these foreign women are human beings like them."
Each month the Thai Embassy here receives about 20 forged passports confiscated from women trying to enter Japan illegally, said Chaturont Chaiyakam, a consul at the embassy. Most of those entering know they will work as prostitutes, but, once here, are kept in servitude and saddled with debts averaging $50,000, he said.
"They may take years to repay the debts," Mr. Chaiyakam said. "Or sometimes a Japanese customer will pay the debt and acquire the girl."
Motohisa Suzuki, the official coordinating the government's new antitrafficking campaign at the prime minister's cabinet office, said the Japanese had already started taking measures against trafficking, using criminal and labor laws.
In addition to a new antitrafficking law that will punish offenders, revisions of immigration laws will exempt victims without proper papers from being deported so that they can cooperate in investigations against traffickers, Mr. Suzuki said. Until recently, the women - even those few willing to testify against traffickers - were deported immediately.
How many of those with entertainment visas end up as trafficking victims and are coerced into prostitution is unclear, Mr. Suzuki said, but he added that the visa "offered a tool for human trafficking." About 70 percent of them end up doing work other than entertainment, including working as bar hostesses, he said.
But Joji Imai, president of the Association of Japanese Promoters Recruiting Foreign Entertainers, said cases of prostitution were isolated. "Many of the customers who like to patronize clubs with foreign entertainers are interested in learning foreign languages or discovering foreign cultures," Mr. Imai said. "They enjoy different cultures, such as Filipinos' cheerfulness."
Koki Kobayashi, a lawmaker in the governing Liberal Democratic Party, said the visas allowed Filipinos to earn good wages and support their families back home. "It is Japanese economic aid," he said. "Why is only Japan criticized?" he added. "I just can't help thinking that the Japanese government is targeting innocent people just because it has been told to do something by the U.S."
The 28-year-old Colombian woman waiting to return home was approached about working in Japan - as a waitress - four years ago by a Colombian woman in Medellín, she said. But three hours after arriving in Tokyo, she was dropped off in a red-light area, Shin Okubo, and taught four Japanese phrases: "Good evening. Where are you going? Let's go to the hotel. Twenty thousand yen," or $200.
She had to hand over $80 a night to two Japanese criminals and make regular payments on a $35,000 debt to her Colombian traffickers, allowing her to send home only $300 a month. Her passport was taken. She was largely confined in her off hours to a small apartment with other Colombian women.
After she had repaid all but $5,000 of the debt, she was sold to one of the Japanese criminals, who demanded an additional $5,000. She repaid the Japanese, but then went into hiding. She worked by herself for six months to buy a plane ticket home.
Deported from Japan, she went back to Colombia, with $130 left.
But after only three days in Colombia, one of the Colombian traffickers called her at home, saying, "You still owe me $5,000." He threatened to kill her children unless she returned to Japan and worked off the debt. A few weeks later, holding a forged passport that cost her yet another $5,000, she was back in Japan.
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