Kurumin Aroma, one of the victims deceived into filming porn.
When Kurumin Aroma was approached by a stranger on the streets of Tokyo four years ago, asking if she wanted to become a famous model, Aroma thought she had a chance to realize her dream of stardom, according to the Guardian.
`That person gave me a business card and spoke solemnly, making me feel that he was very trustworthy,` Aroma recalled.
However, a few months later, the 26-year-old became one of a growing number of young women in Japan being forced by disguised production companies to act in porn films.
In her senior year of college, Aroma agreed to attend an interview with the president of an entertainment company.
`That was the first time I heard about nudity,` she said.
In the following months, this company repeatedly called Aroma to the office, soliciting to film porn.
`They told me I could stop whenever I wanted if I felt uncomfortable or in pain, but that wasn’t true,` Aroma recalls.
A series of reports of women being offered modeling contracts and then being forced or tricked into doing porn has forced Japanese officials to confront the dark side of the billion-dollar porn industry.
Face to face
Last year, the Japanese government for the first time conducted a survey on how to recruit innocent young girls and discovered that out of 20,000 survey participants, 200 had signed `modeling` contracts, of which more than 50
From January to November 2016, 148 women approached Lighthouse, an organization that supports victims of human trafficking, for help.
In a recent shocking case in which three people were arrested, a victim claimed that she was forced to appear in more than 100 movies because if she refused, the production company would notify her family.
Kabuchiko District, Tokyo’s famous red light district, is one of the places where Japanese police have strengthened patrols to prevent cases of seducing and defrauding women into filming porn.
After this incident, the Intellectual Property Promotion Association, which represents the Japanese adult film industry, promised to `encourage producers to quickly improve the situation and restore the health of the industry.`
Kazuko Ito, lawyer and chief secretary of the human rights protection organization Human Rights Now based in Tokyo, welcomed the march campaign to suppress the crime of seducing and coercing women that the police are carrying out.
`The strange thing is that film production companies can do such things with impunity,` Ito said.
The Japanese porn industry’s annual revenue is worth about $4.4 billion, with about 20,000 movies released each year.
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Tricks
Typically, young women around the age of 20 will be approached on the street with compliments that they are beautiful, attractive, enough to succeed in the entertainment industry and then enticed to sign a potential contract.
When they object, the producer threatens to fine them for breach of contract, sometimes up to millions of yen, or threatens to tell their parents, friends or former colleagues about their `new profession`.
In some cases, victims who intend to escape will be arrested and taken to locked hotel rooms or remote places where they cannot escape.
`Beatings are very rare,` Itonois said.
Aroma has now quit her job and become a YouTube celebrity with more than 15,000 followers.
`During the time I was filming, my male colleagues told me I belonged to them, I wasn’t free, and I didn’t know who to ask for help. I was stuck,` Aroma recalled.
Aroma shares her experience of being forced to act in porn during a public event.
She successfully prevented the producers from selling the two movies she starred in, but some videos were still distributed online.
`I used to be very scared every time I had to go out, but now I understand I’m not alone,` Aroma said.
