JapanToday Sotokanda S Bldg. Kabukicho, Japan's largest entertainment zone in Tokyo's Shinjuku district, has been booming of late, with Tokyu Corporation having just opened a new story high-rise complex on April On weekends that complex alone attracts some 35, visitors per day, and by May 22 had already recorded its first millionth visitor. Writing in Shukan Shincho July 20 , journalist Kazunori Kodate is puzzled by the incongruity between Shinjuku's opulence and sleaze, as every evening, several dozen young Japanese women converge on a small park across the street from the Okubo Metropolitan Hospital.
These women engage in tachimbo , a type of prostitution in which women stand on the street and solicit male passers-by. Kodate profiles the sagas of four young females introduced under the pseudonyms "Megumi" and "Hina" both aged 20 , Runa 21 and "Sui" He had no trouble performing.
So the city office organizes civilian patrols to obtain a better grasp of the situation. We can summon the police if trouble breaks out, and of course we share information with them. If a patrolman from the Shinjuku police station appears on the scene, any "price negotiations" promptly come to a halt. But nobody leaves the park. With the waning of the coronavirus pandemic, visitors from abroad have rebounded, and foreign tourists, encouraged by the reduced value of the Japanese yen, also come to shop.
The aforementioned Hina and Runa don't take on foreigners. Their main disincentive is rumors spreading among some of the working girls that some foreigners get too rough. But that doesn't stop some of the less popular girls from taking them on. They are unaware of the welfare system in place that will take them in. So one of our most pressing issues is to identify troubled girls and find ways to assist them.
Hidemori Gen is director of Nihon Kakekomidera, a Kabukicho-based NPO, established in , that seeks to provide assistance to troubled women. Kabukicho has some host clubs, with a working population of perhaps 10 times that figure. Even then, the girls want to keep coming. So they work on the street in order to pay. Some might go so far as to write, 'I've already got a marriage application for us. Let's submit it a year from today. Last April a Kabukicho host was arrested in violation of the anti-prostitution law, for coercing a customer at his club to engage in prostitution.
