Smuggling for sex

Lancet. Volume 364, Number 9443, 16 October 2004

Japanese authorities have done little to stop women being smuggled
into the country to work in the booming sex trade. Current laws only
allow light sentences for protagonists; by contrast, their victims are
imprisoned and deported. Justin McCurry reports on Japan's struggle to
change.

"Lena" was 26 when she was brought from Thailand to Japan with the
promise of a job as an "entertainer". But when she arrived her
passport was confiscated; her job, she quickly learned, was to have
sex with men in seedy hotel rooms.

Her good looks made her a popular choice among clients; she earned 1
million yen (US$9100) in the first month alone. She needed the money.
She owed 6 million yen ($55 000) to her traffickers and minders in
Japan--a debt she was expected to pay back in full under the constant
threat of violence. She was allowed to keep just 10 000 yen ($90) a
month pocket money and was confined to a cramped one-room flat. The
only time she ventured outside was to work.
_____________
Girls working in Japan's sex industry are priced (see back wall)
according to their attractiveness
Iain Mitchell
_____________

One night while waiting for a client in a hotel room, she decided she
could take it no longer. She dialled a Thai embassy helpline given to
her secretly by another Thai woman. The voice at the other end of the
line told her to leave the room immediately, run as fast as she could
for 30 minutes and call again.

Lena ended up, still 4•5 million ($41 000) in debt, at a shelter in
Tokyo where she received a room, meals, counselling, and medical care
before returning to her native Thailand.

Lena's experience is by no means unique. "We estimate there are about
6000 Thai prostitutes in Japan", says Chaturont Chaiyakam of the Thai
embassy's consular section. Each owe their brokers and pimps between 5
million and 6 million yen ($45 000-55 000) for transport, documents,
board, and keep after entering the country on false passports or
simply disappearing during short layovers at Narita airport near Tokyo.

A recent survey by the Tokyo-based Organization for Migration found
that eight in 10 Filipino women trafficked to Japan are forced into
prostitution. Most had had their passports confiscated, and just under
half were aged between 15 and 18--the age of consent in Japan--when
they arrived.

The smugglers are mainly Thais and include former victims who marry
Japanese men. As spouses of Japanese nationals, they are able to
operate their illegal businesses with little interruption because the
police no longer chase them up for suspected visa violations.

Although Japan's National Police Agency said that only 83 women had
been trafficked to the country in the whole of 2003, human rights
groups claim around 150 000 foreign women are working as hostesses,
exotic dancers, and prostitutes in the country's $83 billion
commercial sex industry. Most are from Thailand and the Philippines
but women from China, Russia, South America, and Eastern Europe are
arriving in larger numbers. The plight of these women has become a
matter of national shame for Japan.

The US State Department says there are between 600 000 and 800 000
victims of human trafficking worldwide, but it is Japan's woeful
record--the worst among the G8 nations--that has attracted most
condemnation. In its annual Trafficking in Persons report issued
earlier this year, the State Department placed Japan on a special Tier
2 list of countries--along with such countries as Laos, Mexico, and
the Philippines--which are doing the bare minimum to help end the
international trade in women.

But after decades of inaction, the message appears to be getting
through. Next spring the Japanese parliament is due to revise the
penal code to classify the trafficking of foreign women as a criminal
offence. The current law, passed long before Japan became the world's
second-biggest economy, prohibits only the trafficking of Japanese
women overseas--a crime unheard of these days. And on the few
occasions traffickers are caught, they are charged with violating
immigration and labour laws, for which they receive light sentences.
The women, meanwhile, are arrested and held at detention centres to
await deportation.

______________
Traffickers smuggle in women and girls to work in Japan's booming sex
industry
Iain Mitchell
---------------

Between 20 and 30 women a year find refuge at the Help Asian Women's
Shelter in Tokyo. The shelter, one of only two in the capital, has 10
double rooms now occupied by 12 women and six children from Japan, the
Philippines, Somalia, Thailand, and Colombia.

"Some of the women run away after a few days or weeks when they
realise what they have been brought here to do", says Keiko Otsu, who
runs the refuge. "Even those who don't mind working as prostitutes are
lied to and told they can choose their clients and that they will be
looked after."

Many are psychologically and physically ill by the time they arrive.
They range from women who are tired and scared, and in desperate need
of counselling in their own language, to those with unwanted
pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases,including, in a few
cases, HIV and AIDS.

Otsu has been lobbying police and justice ministry officials to
incorporate into the new law powers to prosecute the women's clients.
"If the authors of this law now recognise that the women are victims,
then why can't they accept that the men who buy them are criminals?"
she asks.

Such a sweeping change is unlikely to be included, but there are signs
that the authorities are softening their approach to trafficking
victims and coming down harder on the organisations, many with links
to the local mafia, that exploit them.

Last year Koichi Hagiwara, one of Japan's most notorious human
traffickers, was given a 22-month sentence for bringing 400 Colombian
women to Japan to work as prostitutes between February 1999 and
December 2002. According to the police, Hagiwara, nicknamed "Sony"
because he liked to film his victims naked, earned 10 million yen ($91
000) a month for providing bars and clubs with a stream of women.

Campaigners have dismissed Hagiwara's fairly long sentence as an
exception, and point out that thousands of other traffickers are
allowed to continue to operate with impunity. Nevertheless, these
early signs of progress should be welcomed, says Hiromasa Nakai of the
Japan Committee for UNICEF in Tokyo.

"In some cases the authorities are bending the law", he says. "They
are supposed to arrest and deport [the women] but they are now taking
humanitarian circumstances into consideration and placing them in
shelters and other institutions."

In addition, the Justice Ministry has started granting women guilty of
visa violations special leave to remain in Japan for up to 90 days if
they are due to act as witnesses in criminal trials. Similar help is
given to those who are pregnant or at risk of violence.

But the numbers are small: last year, only 10 of 53 suspected victims
of human trafficking were granted permission to stay. Even so,
supporters of tougher measures against traffickers are surprised at
the speed with which the Japanese government has responded to the
damning State Department report. They include the International Labour
Organization (ILO), which has just conducted a study into trafficking
in Japan.

"When we began our study we did not expect the situation to change so
drastically", says Mitsuko Horiuchi, director of the ILO's office in
Tokyo. "One of the reasons is that the media has focused more
attention on it and NGOs have been encouraged to take more concerted
action."

But punishing the traffickers will address only one half of the
problem. "Changing the criminal law alone will not solve everything",
she says. "Yes, the women violate immigration laws and some come here
for personal financial gain, I don't deny that. But when all is said
and done they are victims. They are being exploited."

Though he welcomed Tokyo's more serious approach toward the
trafficking of Thai women, Thai embassy spokesman Chaturont was
cautious about the prospects for breaking the cycle of sexual
enslavement. "In Thailand we soon realised that we wouldn't be able to
seriously tackle prostitution in a short time, so we don't expect the
Japanese government to be able to achieve much in the near future
either", he says.

Though many of the women have an inkling of the life that awaits them
in Japan, they weigh the risks against the chance to earn money to
send to their families back home. "The root of the problem is really
difficult to identify but it is closely associated with the social and
economic development in both countries", Chaturont says. "In many
cases, the girls give their consent and return two or three times."
They would be less likely to do so if demand for their services were
not so high. "You can see brothels everywhere in Japan", says
Chaturont. "As long as they exist, so will prostitution and
trafficking. Japan is a high-income country and people will do
unbelievable things to come here."

Justin McCurry

http://www.thelancet.com/journal/journal.isa