Chikan (body contact)

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A sign outside of a bicycle parking lot in Chiba, Japan, warns "Beware of Perverts."

Chikan (痴漢, チカン, or ちかん) is a Japanese term meaning "molester" or "pervert." The term is frequently used to describe people, who take advantage of the crowded conditions on the public transit systems to touch people, primarily females, sexually. In clinical psychology, the desire to do this is called Frotteurism. Although women on crowded trains in Japan are the most frequent targets of chikan, sexual predators in Japan can take advantage of men in other situations as well. One such situation (warned against in the picture, right) is bicycle parking lots, where a molester will wait until a woman or man is bent over, unlocking his or her bicycle lock, and then grope him or her from behind. Chikan often feature in Japanese pornography along with other non-consensual themes.

As part of the effort to combat chikan, some railway companies have designated women-only passenger cars. Increasingly, some men and women are being banned altogether from many Japaneses businesses such as stores, restaurants, hotels, spas, and even entertainment outlets. ^[1]

Chikan have also become increasingly a problem at concerts and dance clubs especially those that feature a mosh pit or similar style where body contact is expected and it can be difficult to move away from someone, bad lighting can make identification problematic, and the noise can make escape easier for the offender. ^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

One high-profile instance is that of economist and former professor at the graduate school of Waseda University Kazuhide Uekusa who has a string of arrests for sex-related offences. The most recent of which came when he was arrested for molesting a schoolgirl on a train on September 13, 2006.