83% of Women Chikan Victims

Police surveys of Japanese commuters reveal a shocking 83% of women admit experiencing chikan encounters on the nation’s trains.

The “urgent” police survey of commuters from the areas around Tokyo asked 2,100 men and women about their opinions and experiences of groping.

Of nearly a thousand women participants, 83% claimed to have “met” a groper on a train at some point.

The survey also quizzed commuters as to what measures they thought best to tackle the problem – 82% thought patrols of trains were the a suitable approach, 75% thought a toughening of penalties appropriate, 74% thought cameras might be the answer, and a surprising 62% considered that warnings broadcast through stations might be effective.

Police are planning to install high resolution cameras in trains to tackle the problem, although there are concerns that cameras will have no more luck than passengers in spotting the often discrete attacks, and it seems unlikely they will encourage victims to more actively resist or report the maniacs who make the nation’s trains so fraught for female commuters.

Further, many find the figures themselves improbable, speculating as to whether women with no experience of such attacks would even participate in such a survey, and whether chikan would even consider 83% of women worth groping in the first place…

Via Mainichi.