The Japan Times has run an interesting story about “JK Industry” sex workers.
It focuses around two teenagers who are schoolgirls working in Akihabara in services ambiguously close to being full-on prostitution but often allowed by the letter of the law.
Seventeen-year-old Momo knows that her customers are keen on doing more with her than the official things she offers.
Momo is among the schoolgirls whom experts warn are prone to gravitate toward the notorious “JK” business — JK being short for “joshi kosei” (high school girls) — rampant in Akihabara and other parts of central Tokyo.
Even though police have cracked down in recent years, experts say the shady part-time job industry featuring high school girls remains a hotbed of teen exploitation and sex trafficking. And the traffickers, ever wary of law enforcement, appear to be changing their tactics to stay one step ahead of the police.
The JK business has variants, including JK “rifure” (reflexology), where the girls give massages and lie next to their clients, and JK “osanpo” (tour guide), where the girls stroll with customers as if on a date.
But be it massaging or sauntering, the men often exploit their privacy with the girls to pressure them for sex or outright assault them, experts say.
Japan has come up to international criticism from America for what is categorized as child prostitution elsewhere. Looking ahead to the 2020 Olympics, Tokyo is trying to act at least to hide what it fears may offend some visitors.
In January 2013, Tokyo police raided 17 JK rifure parlors in pursuit of alleged violations of the labor standards law.
The following April, they began to take girls who work at such establishments into custody to persuade them to quit the industry.
Last December, police started rounding up girls who engaged in osanpo.
In response to the heightened police surveillance, traffickers who hire the girls have changed tactics to make their business look more innocuous.
Instead of asking male passers-by if they want a massage or to take a stroll, many girls distributing fliers now say their job is simply to “chat” with the men, or, bizarre as it may sound, “tell their fortune” in a cafe-like setting.
Of course, this is a ruse for guys to meet girls who they meet again for more intimate encounters. As the regulations get stricter, so the way for people to meet becomes more disguised.
In the latest development, two men were reportedly arrested in October for running what they touted as a JK “komyu” (communications) parlor in Tokyo’s Takadanobaba district. Despite its name, it invited customers to help the girls change into bathing suits and then sniff them.
“Unlike professional hostesses in the adult entertainment business, these girls are still naive in a way that they, for example, recoil in fear when guys try to touch them,” said one campaigner. “The men apparently find this kind of naive reaction a turn-on.”
The girls often come from vulnerable backgrounds and suffer from depression.
15-year-old Kaori is similar to Momo. Her parents divorced when she was young and she lived with her father, though he was rarely home. She started her career in the JK business in order to gain attention.
“The traffickers run their businesses in a way that keeps them just within the law. So it’s hard to bust them,” said the police.
