Prostitution in Japan has existed throughout the country's history.
While the Anti-Prostitution Law of 1956 states that "No person may either do prostitution or become the customer of it," various loopholes, liberal interpretations of the law, and loose enforcement have allowed the sex industry to prosper and earn an estimated 2.3 trillion yen ($24 billion dollars) a year, which accounts for 2 to 3% of the nation's GDP.[1][2]
In Japan, the "sex industry" is not synonymous with prostitution. Since Japanese law defines prostitution as "intercourse with an unspecified person in exchange for payment," most sex clubs only offer non-coital services to remain legal.[3] This has led Joan Sinclair, the author of Pink Box, to observe that the sex industry in Japan ironically "offer[s] absolutely everything imaginable but sex."[4]
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The Shinto faith does not regard sex as a taboo, while Buddhist teachings regarding sex, often strict, have been limited in their impact in practice.
From the 15th century, Chinese, Koreans and other East Asian visitors frequented brothels in Japan.[5]
This practice later continued among visitors from "the Western regions," mainly European traders who often came with their South Asian lascar crew (in addition to African crewmembers, in some cases).[6] This began with the arrival of Portuguese ships to Japan in the 16th century, when the local Japanese people assumed that the Portuguese were from Tenjiku ("Heavenly Abode"), the Japanese name for the Indian subcontinent (due to its importance as the birthplace of Buddhism), and that Christianity was a new "Indian faith". These mistaken assumptions were due to the Indian city of Goa being a central base for the Portuguese East India Company and also due to a significant portion of the crew on Portuguese ships being Indian Christians.[7]
Portuguese visitors and their South Asian and African crewmembers often engaged in slavery in Japan, where they bought or captured young Japanese women and girls, who were either used as sexual slaves on their ships or taken to Macau and other Portuguese colonies in Southeast Asia, the Americas,[6] and India, where there was a community of Japanese slaves and traders in Goa by the early 17th century.[8] Later European East India companies, including those of the Dutch and British, were involved in prostitution while in Japan.[9]
Rōnin, masterless samurai, were not allowed in and neither were the prostitutes let out, except to visit dying relatives and, once a year, to see the sakura cherry blossoms.
The opening of Japan and the subsequent flood of Western influences into Japan brought about a series of changes in the Meiji period. Japanese novelists, notably Higuchi Ichiyō, started to draw attention to the confinement and squalid existence of the lower-class prostitutes in the red-light districts. In 1908, Ministry of Home Affairs Ordinance No. 16 penalized unregulated prostitution.
Karayuki-san (唐行きさん "Ms. Gone-overseas") were Japanese women who travelled to East Asia and Southeast Asia in the second half of the 19th century to work as prostitutes. Many of these women are said to have originated from the Amakusa Islands of Kumamoto Prefecture, which had a large and long-stigmatized Japanese Christian community.
Many of the women who went overseas to work as karayuki-san were the daughters of poor agricultural or fishing families. The mediators that arranged for the women to go overseas would search for girls of appropriate age in poor farming communities and pay their parents, telling them they were going overseas on public duty. The mediators would then make money by passing the girls onto people in the prostitution industry. With the money the mediators received, some would also go on to set up their own overseas brothels.
The end of the Meiji period was the golden age for karayuki-san, and the girls that would go on these overseas voyages were known fondly as joshigun (女子軍), or "army of girls." However, with the internationalisation of Japan things began to change, and soon enough karayuki-san were considered shameful. During the 1910s and 1920s, Japanese officials overseas worked hard to eliminate Japanese brothels and maintain Japanese prestige.[10] Many of the Japanese prostitutes returned to Japan, but some ended up staying on.
Immediately after World War II, the Recreation and Amusement Association was formed by Naruhiko Higashikuni's government to organize brothels to serve the Allied armed forces occupying Japan. On 19 August 1945, the Home Ministry ordered local government offices to establish a prostitution service for Allied soldiers to preserve the "purity" of the "Japanese race". The official declaration stated that "Through the sacrifice of thousands of 'Okichis' of the Shōwa era, we shall construct a dike to hold back the mad frenzy of the occupation troops and cultivate and preserve the purity of our race long into the future..."[11] Such clubs were soon established by cabinet councilor Yoshio Kodama and Ryoichi Sasakawa.
However, SCAP abolished the licensed prostitution system (including the RAA) in 1946. In 1947, Imperial Ordinance No. 9 punished persons for enticing women to act as prostitutes, but prostitution itself remained legal. Only the Anti-Prostitution Law of 1956 (No. 118, passed May 24, 1956)—reportedly spurred by alarming rates of sexually transmitted diseases among troops—made organised prostitution illegal, at least in some forms.
After the Pacific War, the topic of karayuki-san was a little known fact of Japan's pre-war underbelly, but in 1972 Tomoko Yamazaki published Sandakan Brothel No. 8 which raised awareness of karayuki-san and encouraged further research and reporting.
The main destinations of karayuki-san included China, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Borneo, Thailand, and Indonesia. They were often sent to Western colonies in Asia where there was a strong demand from Western military personnel and Chinese men.[12] There were cases of Japanese women being sent to places as far as Siberia, Manchuria, Hawaii, North America (California), and Africa (Zanzibar).
Non-Japanese Asian women working in Japan as dancers, singers, hostesses, and strippers from the second half of the 20th century are called japayuki-san (ジャパ行きさん, lit. "Miss Gone-to-Japan"), and have become the subject of much controversy. The word itself is derogatory.
Article 3 of the Anti-Prostitution Law (売春防止法 Baishun Bōshi Hō) of 1956[13] states that "No person may either do prostitution or become the customer of it," but no judicial penalty is defined for this act. Instead, the following are prohibited on pain of penalty: soliciting for purposes of prostitution, procuring a person for prostitution, coercing a person into prostitution, receiving compensation from the prostitution of others, inducing a person to be a prostitute by paying an "advance," concluding a contract for making a person a prostitute, furnishing a place for prostitution, engaging in the business of making a person a prostitute, and the furnishing of funds for prostitution.[14]
The definition of prostitution is strictly limited to coitus.[15] This means sale of numerous acts such as oral sex, anal sex, intercrural sex, and other non-coital sex acts are all legal. The Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Law of 1948 (風俗営業取締法 Fūzoku Eigyō Torishimari Hō),[16] amended in 1985 and 1999, regulates these businesses.
The sex industry in Japan uses a variety of names. Soaplands are bath houses where customers are soaped up and serviced by staff. Fashion health shops and pink salons are notionally massage or esthetic treatment parlors, and image clubs are themed versions of the same (see Cosplay). Call girls operate via delivery health services. Freelancers can get in contact with potential customers via telekura (telephone clubs), and the actual act of prostitution is legally called enjo kōsai or "compensated dating" to avoid legal trouble. Kabukicho, an entertainment and red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, measures only 0.34 km2, and has approximately 3,500 sex parlors, strip theaters, peep shows, "soaplands", 'lovers' banks, porno shops, sex telephone clubs, karaoke bars and clubs, etc.
Over 150,000 non-Japanese women are in prostitution in Japan. According to National Police Agency records, out of 85 non-Japanese people arrested for prostitution offences (売春防止法違反 Baishun Bōshihō Ihan) in 2007, 37 (43.5%) were mainland Chinese and 13 (15.3%) were Thai, while Taiwanese and Koreans made up 12 (7.2%) each.[17]
In Tokyo, prostitution dates back several hundred years. In the early 17th century, first attempts were made to criminalize prostitution in Yoshiwara in Edo (present-day Tokyo). A law was passed which required prostitutes to register and work in secured facilities, its main purpose being for tax collection. Prostitutes were divided into classes or ranks, and the men of society would use the services of those afforded to their position in the city.
In modern times, Tokyo's prostitution trade is well regarded for its high class of services and large customer base. Because of Tokyo's position as a top 5 global business and trade city, prostitution continues to thrive in Tokyo. Clients on business trips or trade conventions, along with traditional tourists, continue to provide demands for Tokyo's sex industry, providing economic benefits.
Several terms have been used for as euphemisms for the sex industry in Japan:
Japan is a top destination for victims of human trafficking, according to a report produced by the UNODC.[18]
Women and children from East Asia, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, and Latin America are trafficked to Japan for commercial sexual exploitation.[19]
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