In recent years there has been a surge of "old fashioned" street prostitution on the streets of Tokyo and other big Japanese cities, with young Japanese ladies offering themselves for sex for 10-20,000 yen (hotel fee extra).
This odd resurgence has been driven not by the desperate need for money for themselves or their families, but instead to pay the exorbitant bills they have run up at host clubs, where women "socialize" with male staff in a bar setting, often leading to the women giving the hosts expensive presents or money in exchange for attention and sex. Japan has around 1,100 such establishments.
Now, it looks like the Japanese government is finally doing something about it, with the Japanese Diet passing a law against "predatory practices at male host clubs."
This odd resurgence has been driven not by the desperate need for money for themselves or their families, but instead to pay the exorbitant bills they have run up at host clubs, where women "socialize" with male staff in a bar setting, often leading to the women giving the hosts expensive presents or money in exchange for attention and sex. Japan has around 1,100 such establishments.
Now, it looks like the Japanese government is finally doing something about it, with the Japanese Diet passing a law against "predatory practices at male host clubs."
As reported by the Kyodo News Agency:
"The Japanese parliament enacted Tuesday a revised law targeting host clubs that coerce female customers who have developed feelings for male hosts into prostitution and other sex work to pay off debts accumulated at the establishments."
So, are these host clubs -- effectively hotbeds of exploitation and pimpery -- going to be smashed and closed down?
Well, not quite. All the law does is "ban" a few emotionally manipulative tricks that the hosts use to push their clients into a sense of obligation and financial debt that turns them into host club whores.
The new law "stipulates that it is illegal to tell a host club customer that she will be denied contact with her favourite host or to say that the host will face penalties, such as demotion, as leverage to encourage the purchasing of drinks and food at the club, which are typically extremely overpriced.
"If such a violation is found, a local public safety commission will instruct the club to correct it. Failure to comply may result in the revocation of its business license, forcing the operation to close."
The law, which will come into force in six months, will also attempt to ban the clubs from forcing indebted customers into prostitution and "introducing" them to sex-related establishments. But since the pressure used to do this is all very indirect, this also will be hard to pin down.
"People found guilty of either crime are subject to imprisonment of up to six months or a maximum fine of 1 million yen ($6,900), or both."
Managers of host clubs could also be liable to imprisonment for two to five years and fines from 2 million to 10 million yen, with the emphasis very much on the word "could."
I doubt we'll see much in the way of prosecutions from this new law. This reflects one of the pillars of Japanese "crime-fighting," namely, try not to prosecute too many people, because, if you do, it will only push up the "official" crime stats, and make the authorities look bad.
This law may look good on paper, but it is essentially just another legal "nag note" designed to avoid prosecutions while applying the gentlest of pressure on an industry that has found a major weak spot in the psyche of young Japanese women and is brutally exploiting it.
The final result of this and other measures will be to drive the prostituting of host club customers off the streets, where it is in plain view, but not to stop it.
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