The dark side behind the industry of hiring female students to work part-time in Japan
Hano plans to work in the entertainment industry for men for another three years.
According to a 2015 report by Yumeno Nito, a social activist for girls, there are about 5,000 girls under the age of 18 working in the entertainment industry that caters to men (JK).
They work in many forms, from the most seemingly harmless jobs like `going on dates` and shopping with customers, to sitting at a shop to receive customers like Hano or more extreme like Yumi, a 17-year-old girl.
JK industry is attracting the attention of many NGOs, including Bond Project.
`Many girls are not aware that the service they provide is a form of prostitution,` Ms. Tachibana said.
The legal age for sex workers in Japan is 18. However, ancient customs allow girls as young as 13 to have sex, creating a loophole for abusers to exploit girls.
Employees of the Bond Project, a non-governmental organization, roam Tokyo’s Shibuya streets at night looking for girls in need of help.
Having problems with family
According to Yumi, male customers come to female students working in the JK industry because of their youthfulness and immaturity.
`Every girl is young,` Yumi said.
Girls at high risk often have family problems like Yumi, a young woman growing up in a family without a parent.
`There are not many female students who join the JK industry purely to make money. Things are not that simple,` commented Tachibana.
Yumi said she didn’t want to go back when her mother started bringing her boyfriend back home.
Hano, like Yumi, has trouble relating to her parents.
`Customers care more about me than my parents. They advised me to go back to school,` the 15-year-old girl confided.
However, according to Ms. Nito’s report, more and more girls in the JK industry come from normal families, with younger ages.
Natsuko Takeshita, a Bond Project employee, describes a recruitment advertisement as follows:
`The advertising format is very beautiful, using the color pink, full of hearts and sparkling stars. Girls like cute things so they are easily attracted,` Takeshita said.
M
Nanami, 16 years old, is one of them.
Sitting with other girls wearing uniforms, she will chat and play games in a room with a one-way mirror until visitors arrive.
A Japanese female student performs through a `magic mirror`.
A reporter posing as a customer entered Nanami’s workplace in January.
`She stepped forward, started dancing provocatively,` he said.
One-way mirrors are used as shields to protect girls from seeing the actions of male guests in private rooms.
`It feels like two people face to face,` she said.
Nanami quit her job and found shelter in a dormitory sponsored by the Bond Project.
`My goal is to live alone,` she explains.
Abandoned
To better help young women like Nanami, Ms. Tachibana believes that adults need to learn more deeply about the family background of these teenagers.
`These young women need protection, but they don’t feel they are being protected by adults. Instead, they are excluded and humiliated,` Tachibana said.
Bond Project currently has only one house for 4 people to stay.
They also set up a hotline in the hope of becoming a place to listen and advise girls working in the JK industry to quit their jobs or further prevent them from committing suicide.
`Many children have low self-esteem and do not dare to dream about the future, so they tend to be exploited by this industry,` she said.
A girl quit the JK industry to take refuge in the dormitory of the Bond Project organization.
Through Bond Project, she wants to help girls in the JK industry like Nanami, Hano and Yumi become independent by providing long-term support.
`These girls have nowhere to hide, so I want to give them a shelter and fulfill the duty of an adult – someone willing to listen to them,` she said.
