Society Seiboren: 'Japan has become poor'

A pretty grim read. The South China Morning Post reports that - according to Seiboren (Council of Fathers and Mothers to Protect Youth) - Japan has become a poor country:

In the golden years of Japan's economic boom, its men would venture to foreign shores, seeking the thrill of illicit encounters offered by women from poorer nations. But today, the tables have turned, with foreign men now flocking to Tokyo for "sex tourism" as the yen weakens and poverty rises. Yoshihide Tanaka, secretary general of the Seiboren, painted a grim picture of the current landscape. "Japan has become a poor country," he told This Week in Asia at the organisation's offices.

Nearby, in a park that's become synonymous with the city's sex trade, young women wait for customers before the sun has even set. Tanaka's organisation noticed an increasing number of foreigners frequenting the park as soon as pandemic-era travel restrictions were dropped. "But now we are seeing many more foreign men," he said. "They come from many countries. They are white, Asian, black – but most are Chinese."

This influx has coincided with a troubling rise in teenagers and women in their early twenties turning to the sex industry to survive, Tanaka said, alongside an alarming increase in violence. "It's getting worse. Much worse," he said, shaking his head. "There are more kids here and more violence, but our organisation cannot do anything more than we are already doing." Tanaka's frustration is palpable as he reflects on his decade-long struggle to support the young Japanese women who wash up in Tokyo's notorious Kabukicho district – a maze of bars, love hotels, and host clubs where the vulnerable are often preyed upon.

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More on Seiboren's activities:

thomas said:

'He brainwashed her': Tokyo woman says daughter was lured by 'host,' ran up huge tab - The Mainichi

TOKYO -- An increasing number of women in Tokyo's Kabukicho nightlife district are selling their bodies at sex establishments and on the streets to pa

mainichi.jp

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Back in the day when I was studying Japanese at the university here in Denmark, one of my teachers, Okamotosensei, showed us a documentary on the dark side of host clubs in Japan. One of the girls' stories shared stark similarities with this one and even now, thirty years later, it has stayed with me in the back of my mind.

The girl was in love with one of the male hosts and would frequent his club beyond her means. In order to be able to continue going, she became a host herself but at one of the establishments where sex was expected at the end of the transaction. The footage of him and her interacting was heartbreaking. She would order drinks and he would sit there, touching her arm, smiling at her, but the moment she got up to leave, he completely lost interest. He would then call her a few days later to ask when she was coming over and she'd run right back, repeating the cycle every day she could afford.

At the end of the documentary, she described what her life was like, how she shared a room with 3 other girls in the same situation, sleeping in bunkbeds to make ends meet, and explained how many clients she had to 'entertain' to earn enough, how embarrassing it was to get tested for STIs every week, how she'd wish men wouldn't refuse to wear condoms, how she hadn't seen her mother in 3 years because she was too ashamed to face her, etc. And she was so young, very early 20s, so close to my age back then. It really put a dent in my naive idolisation of Japan as the perfect place.