Prostitution Rife in Japanese Schools, Prices Below $30

• Author: Artefact
• Categories: Japan, News
• Date: Jul 5, 2009 20:09 JST


• Tags: Crime, Dating, Enjo Kousai, Keitai, Prostitution, Relationships, Schoolgirls
  

Prostitution is said to be rampant in Japanese schools, with schoolgirls of ever younger ages selling their bodies for extra spending money, both to adults and amongst themselves.

Prices for girls in elementary school are said to have dropped below ¥3,000, leading some to wonder what has and will become of the nation’s public morals…

In many cases the prostitution is conducted through “deai-kei” sites, often relationship focused BBSes designed for use with mobile phones.

In one illustrative case, a middle school boy pimped out a thirteen-year-old girl for over ¥60,000 in total using such a site, whilst other schoolgirls used the site to sell their bodies themselves.

With these sites facilitating enjo kousai (“compensated dating”) to an unprecedented degree, a whole culture (or industry) of schoolgirl prostitution has sprung up, with girls being called “JC” in the slang of the sites, and with the large amounts of money involved encouraging involvement in the trade.

In a similar case to the above, a boy in middle school is said to have advertised “Recruiting JC in Kanagawa. You can make a lot so anyone looking for dates come to me,” and to have pimped out a 16-year-old girl for ¥40,000.

Such prices are said to be the exception rather than the rule, and prices drop even further when pupils engage in prostitution amongst themselves, or when they are younger, with high school students selling themselves to one another for a paltry ¥3,000, and middle school pupils charging even less.

These sites have been subjected to increased police scrutiny amidst a major police crackdown, but it appears that many sites have no difficulty in operating discretely without police supervision posing a problem.

Nationwide filtering of children’s access to the Internet is touted as a solution, and is now in effect, but it seems this rather underestimates the ingenuity of such children, particularly when large amounts of money are at stake.

The girls selling their bodies in this way have apparently been getting younger and younger, with elementary schoolers now increasingly turning to prostitution as an easy way of accumulating pocket money; an account of which is provided by the clinic:

“The age at which kids are getting into sex is getting lower. Even girls in middle school are becoming very sexually active. A high school boy came in recently with a second year middle school girl recently, and the pair had been sexually active. The boy asked me to tell his friend about STDs, although at least she was with a good boy.”

However, promotion of condoms has apparently kept pregnancies to a minimum. Even so, some girls are blasé about the matter, and are happy to be pregnant. Even teachers are said to turn a blind eye to pregnancies rather than have to get involved.

Additionally, sexually transmitted diseases appear to be making an impact. Disturbing reports from healthcare professionals indicate that in some clinics, up to 30% of patients were in their teens.

One case is described in lurid detail:

“There was a girl in the fifth year of elementary school who was doing enjo kousai, she was a groupie for talents. Her pantsu were always soiled [with blood], and she kept coming in with Chlamydia.”

The clinic staff warned her to stop having sex, but she persisted, and kept returning. Eventually she stopped visiting the clinic entirely.

Via J-Cast.

Amongst university students the practice of such informal prostitution is said to be even more common; Japan’s womanhood has at some point apparently became a mass commodity, and it is difficult to see any reasons why this should be the case, at least ones more helpful than “because they are harlots”.

It does however seem the traditional approach of only blaming the men (and boys) involved, and then subjecting them to criminal sanction, has only created a culture where schoolgirls boldly hawk themselves with impunity.

Possibly it may be time to consider why it is these girls are so ready to sell themselves for additional pocket money, and whether it is indeed appropriate to absolve them of all responsibility for their actions…