epaselect JAPAN PROSTITUTION

Young women pushed into prostitution in Japan's Kabukicho 'Host Clubs'

epaselect epa11024111 A woman walks past a billboard of a 'Host Club' at Kabukicho, Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan, 06 December 2023 (issued 12 December 2023). A worrying trend of vulnerable young women being pushed into prostitution to pay off debts they have racked up at 'Host Clubs' is causing social alarm in Japan due to the methods of how the victims are being recruited and exploited. In Kabukicho, Tokyo's red light district, 'Host Clubs' offering entertainment with male companions known as 'hosts' attract young women with very low prices, or by contacting them through social networks or dating applications. Once at the establishment, they are dazzled 'with a dreamlike atmosphere' and with hosts who look like 'K-Pop idols'. The young women are then inundated with messages from the 'hosts' and enticed to become intimate with them and spend on drinks in subsequent dates. They often run up huge tabs and their bills accumulate until their debts become untenable. The victims are then forced to look for better-paid jobs to pay their debts, a situation that the 'hosts' take advantage of by introducing them to lucrative sex-related businesses. According to mutual aid group Seiboren which was set up to help the victims, more than 250 inquiries have been received since its founding last July, most of them from parents who discover that their daughters have accumulated debts averaging seven or eight million yen (44,600 or 51,000 euros) and have fallen into prostitution to pay them. EPA/KIMIMASA MAYAMA

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