News
|
|
May 16th 2013
Polaris Project Japan
“My critics seem to think that my comments mean massage industry = prostitution = sex. Well, the Japanese people are cleverer than you think: they know how to offer services that are sexual in nature while not crossing the line and staying within legal boundaries. And if you look at situation in Japan right now, women who need to work in that field out of economic necessity are close to nil; they’re doing it by choice. If anything, one should utilize these services to the fullest.”
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s May 13th Tweet
Recently Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s string of comments on prostitution has caused an uproar in the foreign and domestic media, but we here at Polaris Project Japan hope to take this as a chance reflect on Japan’s views on prostitution and the sex industry.
Mayor Hashimoto’s comments are not only shameful as the mayor of Japan’s second largest city, but, we believe, somewhat reflect society’s apathy towards slavery, the sex trade, and the human rights violations that occur within. For over the last ten years, not only the U.N. but North American and other Asian countries have pointed out and censured Japan on the human rights violations occurring within its sex trade. The problem lies in part with the Japanese media not reporting these matters, leaving Japanese citizens with little awareness of the problem.
The forced labor that Mayor Hashimoto claims do not exist in the sex trade is, in actuality, a grave problem in Japan. Many foreigners are forced into to working in Japan’s sex industry, resulting in Japan being lamented by many in the international community as a “human trafficking destination superpower.” And whether child prostitution, child pornography, the adult sex trade or forced prostitution, many Japanese victims exist as well. This January in the very city Mayor Hashimoto presides over was the case of two Japanese women in their early twenties forced into prostitution by black-market loan sharks before being rescued.
Next month in May, the U.S. government will release its Trafficking in Persons Report that is released as part of its effort to abolish human trafficking. Sadly, Japan continues to be ranked as a country that “does not fully comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking” for twelve years in a row, ranking the same as countries such as Cambodia. Unsurprisingly, Japan is the lowest ranked of the G8 countries. Considering there’s still no anti-trafficking government policy in particular in place, this year a similar evaluation is expected.
We here at Polaris Project Japan believe that the mistaken belief of the sex industry being either a victimless crime or that those involved have entered by choice (a misconception Mayor Hashimoto’s comments do well to illustrate) lie at the root of the difficulty in Japan abolishing human trafficking. Japan’s lax policy towards this issue is an international embarrassment; in addition, it reflects not only an apathy that allows for sex trade victims to needlessly increase but also a society that in effect condones the sex trade’s human rights violations and the human suffering of its victims. We hope that the mayor’s statements have produced a chance for reflection as well as an opportunity for Japan to rethink its views on these issues.
Translated By Andre Perez
The original Japanese version of this article can be found here: http://www.polarisproject.jp/news/1208-20130516 |
|
|
Click here to subscribe to our newsletter!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Polaris Post Volume 62
December 2012
---------------------------------------------------------------------
■INDEX■
- Polaris Seminar on Saturday, December 15 in Ebisu, Tokyo
- Polaris Voice: College student trapped in human trafficking industry
- Tokyo Governor Candidate Survey on Children and Women's Policies
- Polaris Digest
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
* Polaris Project Monthly Seminar "You Know Human Trafficking?"
Forth Seminar on Saturday, December 15, 4 pm- @ Eiji Press Lab, Ebisu
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The forth Polaris Monthly seminar in December will discuss human trafficking
in Japan from victim support perspectives.
The speaker is Ms. Keiko Ohtsu, former director of Women's Home HELP.
Women's Home HELP provides emergency shelter and hotline services
to women and their children, regardless of their nationality or visa
status.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Our 2011 Activities Report is now available for download at this link.
Please take some time to download the report and review our activities last year!
- Polaris Project Japan |
|
Shihoko Fujiwara: Human trafficking "Modern-day slavery in Japan"
| Date: |
Thursday, July 12, 2012 |
| Time: |
7:00p.m. (Talk will start at 7:30p.m.) |
| Venue: |
Temple University, Japan Campus, Mita 502/503
|
|
Speaker:
|
Shihoko Fujiwara |
|
Moderator:
|
Robert Dujarric
|
| Admission: |
Free (Open to general public) |
| RSVP: |
*If you RSVP you are automatically registered. If possible, we ask you to RSVP but we always welcome participants even you do not RSVP.
*RSVPなしでも参加できますので、直接会場へお越しください。
|
Overview
The U.S. Government has designated Japan a Tier 2 human trafficking country for eleven consecutive years. Tier 2 countries are defined as countries whose governments do not comply with minimum international standards. This ranks Japan below Taiwan and South Korea (Tier 1) and most western European states, in the same category as Hong Kong, Brazil, India, Israel, and Switzerland, and above Russia and China (Tier 2- Watch List).
|
|
Read more...
|
|
PPJ Media Seminar
On the Release of the 2012 Trafficking
in Persons (TIP) Report
June 20, 2012 — Polaris Project Japan, a Tokyo-based non-profit organization devoted to the elimination of human trafficking (represented by Shihoko Fujiwara) in collaboration with SMJ (the Solidarity Network With Migrants Japan, represented by Ippei Torii) held an urgent press event on Wednesday to coincide with the American government’s release of the 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report the preceding day. The report—which summarizes the state of the global trafficking problem and assigns countries a ranking based on their efforts to combat it—was analyzed in light of how it reflects on the state of human trafficking in Japan. The event was held on June 20th at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (FCCJ).
Human trafficking is often called “modern-day slavery,” and refers to the act of exploiting a person for sex or labor purposes by means of force or intimidation. Globally, there are now over 21 million people being held in this slave-like state by traffickers.* Human trafficking is the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world, and many countries are employing various criminal prevention measures intended to eliminate it.
Human trafficking is also a gravely serious problem in Japan. Many women are brought to Japan against their will to work in its sex industry, and Japan is gaining international notoriety as “a major human trafficking country.” The victims of trafficking are not limited to foreigners—there are also many Japanese nationals forced into child prostitution, child pornography, sexual labor, and other tragic circumstances.
The U.S. Department of State releases its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report as a means of drawing attention to the global trafficking problem and identifying nations that are not taking sufficient action to stop it. In the 2012 report, Japan was designated a country that “does not comply with minimum international standards” for the twelfth consecutive year. This is the same designation as Cambodia and South Africa, and it is the worst ranking among developed nations.
In this urgent media seminar, these two experts on human trafficking in Japan introduced the findings of the 2012 TIP report (released on June 19th, U.S. time) and provided their own perspectives on it. Also, prior to the TIP report’s release, Polaris Project Japan conducted the first ever comprehensive survey of Japanese public awareness of the human trafficking problem. The results of this survey were presented alongside the TIP report’s relevant findings in order to juxtapose the perception of the problem with its reality. Awareness of trafficking in Japan was found to be significantly lower than it should be, given the extent of the problem. Various countermeasures to combat human trafficking going forward were also discussed.
*International Labour Organization Report (June 2012)
Problems Identified in the Report
① Lack of comprehensive anti-trafficking law, and lack of any visible efforts to establish one
② Though it is making slight progress in protecting women and children from forced prostitution, there seems to be little effort aimed at forced labor, male victims, etc.(619 cases of child prostitution, 45 cases of trafficking adults)
③ Lack of protection system and shelters for trafficking victims
④ In the past 18 years, not one person subjected to forced labor as a foreign trainee has been identified as a victim
⑤ Lack of effort to prevent child sex tourism in Southeast Asia by Japanese nationals; the narrow prohibitions in place have failed to produce visible results
Please read the 2012 TIP Report at the U.S. State Department's website: http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2012/index.htm
Also please read our Human Trafficking Awareness Survey result here |
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 1 of 4 |
|
Polaris Updates
