Poverty Fuels Trafficking to Japan

By Shannon Devine, Herizons

The flight from Manila to Tokyo takes four and a half hours. For the over 80,000 young Filipinas who make this trip each year, it is a direct ticket into Japan’s enormous human trafficking trade.

Japan is home to 10,000 commercial sex establishments and Filipinas account for over half of the 150,000 to 200,000 foreign women and girls trafficked into the country each year. Thai women follow closely behind at 40 per cent, while the rest come from China, Korea, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.

“Japan is multicultural in this regard. It is linked with almost every country through trafficking,” says Keiko Tamai, Japan program director of the Asia Foundation, an international organization that founded the Japan Network Against Trafficking In Humans. The influential coalition of local and international NGOs has had some success lobbying Japan for recent reforms.

However, activists fear the new anti-trafficking policies will do little to curb the estimated $90-billion industry in Japan. The buying and selling of humans, or jin shin bae bae, accounts for one to three percent of the country’s GNP. The trafficking industry is tightly controlled by the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, and has connections in the countries of origin that help funnel women into the country.

Two years ago, Japan was criticized as one of the world’s worst trafficking nations when it was cited by the U.S. “as a country on the verge of losing the war against human trafficking.” Besides being added to the U.S. trafficking watch list, Japan has also been cited by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other anti-trafficking groups for its poor victim protection measures and lax laws.

As a result, in June 2005, Japan revised its penal code to criminalize human trafficking and improve survivor support. Under the amended law, those found guilty of trafficking receive five years in prison for cases involving women and seven for trafficking in children. The government announced it would begin granting temporary asylum to trafficking survivors and assist in their repatriation.

Until then, trafficking survivors were arrested as illegal immigrants and deported at their own expense. Traffickers, meanwhile, were rarely arrested or charged. The tightening of anti-trafficking laws may have gotten the country off the trafficking watch list, but will the improvements translate to better conditions for the women?

Gina, a former entertainer in Japan and an advocate, says no. In the 15 years since her first deployment to Japan, she says the working conditions haven’t changed. Now employed as the Alternative Livelihood Project co-ordinator at Development Action Network for Women (DAWN) in Manila, she meets hundreds of women whose stories mirror her own.

Gina made her first trip from the Philippines at 21. With her dance troupe, she applied for and received an entertainer visa. When it came time to depart, she found she was the only one of her troupe boarding the plane.

Activists claimed that Japan’s entertainer visa gave traffickers a legal route to exploit women. The majority of entertainer visas are issued to women from the Philippines or Thailand.

Under previous Japanese labour law, entertainer visa holders were considered guests, not workers, and enjoyed no protection under the law. Under revised entertainer visa criteria and immigration criteria, those who wish to obtain the visa must complete two years of formal training as a performer, and employer contracts must be strictly adhered to.

Upon arriving at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, Gina’s employer confiscated her passport and took her directly to her new job at a hostess club. She was shocked at what she found there: Filipinas in lingerie, bathing suits or stripped down to their underwear, dancing with men who were encouraged to fondle them.

“My job category was cultural dancer, but I never danced,” says Gina. “I was asked to wear sexy outfits, instead.” She is skeptical that the new policies, which include checking employees’ visa status, will make any difference for the women there. “Even if a Filipina leaves for Japan and she signs a lot of contracts and legal paperwork, when she gets there she will still do a different job.”

Women are kept in a state of powerlessness, explains Carmelita Nuqui, executive director of DAWN. “They are transferred from one place to another so that customers will have new women,” she says. “They also confiscate their documents and the club owner holds them. Women have no choice but to just follow them. At other times, the customer pays a lot of money to take them out. Here they are very clearly selling the women.”

According to Human Rights Watch, foreign women staff the lowest rungs of the sex industry—date “snack bars” and low-end brothels where women spend less than 20 minutes with each customer. There they are at high risk for HIV/AIDS, poor nutrition and other health problems.

Gina was convinced by her best friend to go to Japan as a way to provide for her daughter. Women are often introduced to the promoter or agency by a trusted friend or family member. They are recruited mainly from remote areas of poor Asian countries where women are unaware of the risks of going abroad and too desperate to inquire. Many are supporting their entire families.

In the clubs and snack bars, women work from 3 p.m. to as late as 5 or 6 a.m. the next morning. They are expected to go on “dates” with customers on their days off.

“Women do not have enough information,” says Gina. “I didn’t know who to turn to when there were problems there. But even if I knew where to go when I had trouble, I wouldn’t have been able to leave the bar. You can’t just leave the place without the boss knowing about it.” Leaving often means risking one’s life. “If someone got caught leaving,” says Gina, “they would be beaten, threatened to be sent back home to the Philippines without their salary, or they could be arrested.”

Her first time in Japan left her with little to show. Gina was not paid while she was in Japan. Although against Japanese labour law, the practice of withholding pay is common. “I got paid when I arrived back in the Philippines, and I got less than what I was supposed to receive.” The promised salary was $400 a month. Unable to find stable work in the Philippines, Gina returned to Japan six more times. In her last term in Japan, she was raped by a friend of the club owner, which resulted in her third child after several unsuccessful abortion attempts.

“When it happened, I didn’t know where to turn to because I wasn’t in my own country,” says Gina. “He was a customer, and maybe if I would have told it to authorities or other people they wouldn’t believe me.” Thailand also encourages labour export as a means to cope with the country’s high unemployment. This often comes at the expense of a young girl’s childhood. The northern hills where Thailand meets Myanmar and Laos—called the Golden Triangle—is the main recruiting ground for young Thai girls and women. The hill tribes have little means of supporting themselves, so brokers take advantage of their desperation. Some parents sell daughters to alleviate their poverty.

The Japanese newspaper Asahi Geino reports that a 10-year-old girl can be bought for approximately $600. From there, the girls are often moved to Bangkok, and then Japan. The initial purchase is part of a long tally of bills the girls and women have to pay off before seeing freedom.

Thai women, especially those from the hill tribes who lack Thai citizenship, are vulnerable to becoming bonded labourers. Once arriving, many are told that they owe between $20,000 and $45,000 for transportation fees and job placement. It is here they find themselves engulfed in the sex industry. Pot went to Japan at 27 to save money to support her son. “I didn’t realize what kind of work I was going to do until I was on my way to Japan,” she told Human Rights Watch. Pot was told by recruiters that she would work in a factory and receive half of her salary until her $29,000 travel debt was paid off.

She used her own passport, but the agent took care of the paperwork. He even told her which window to get her visa from. Once in Bangkok, she was taken to a hotel where she was locked up with several other women. She flew first to South Korea, where she met with another 50 Thai women, many of whom were under 20 years old. “This is where I learned that all of the women were going to work in prostitution,” explains Pot. “I didn’t know what to do. I thought that once I got to Japan, I would change my job immediately.” When she arrived in Tokyo, she was put in a van with other Thai women and driven to different places around town to be sold. On the fifth day, a Thai woman bought her for $29,000 and took her to Ibaraki north of Tokyo.

Pot worked for eight months to pay off her debt, although she calculated it should have been paid off long before. “The mamasan (manager) kept lying to me and said she didn’t have the same records as I did. During these eight months, I had to take every client that wanted me and work every day, even during my menstruation.” When she was caught saving money for her family, the manager threatened she would sell her again and double her debt. Despite the deplorable conditions, Pot did not run away.

Those who run away now can arrange temporary shelter through an embassy. Since the 2005 law amendment, the Japanese police and government have been working with support NGOs and public and private shelters to assure that the women are protected. The police try to persuade the women to press charges against their employers, promoters and agencies, but with very limited success. Despite a few high-profile cases, Tamai is doubtful that many traffickers will be apprehended.

“If survivors testify about their experience, they will be threatened and their family might be threatened, too,” says Tamai. “There is a sort of psychological control.”

Security remains a serious issue for those who escape, putting shelter workers at risk as well. A Housing in Emergency Love and Peace (HELP) Asian Women’s Shelter case worker cited safety as her primary concern in dealing with trafficking cases in Tokyo. “Often if a woman escapes, her trafficker will try to recapture her,” she says. This is especially true of women sold into bondage. “We need a security guard at all times, and when we take her to immigration or to the police we need to be protected. It is very dangerous.”

International co-operation is necessary for protecting women from exploitation at home and abroad. Nuqui says it is not only up to the Japanese government to take responsibility for the trafficking of women—the Philippine government must also be held accountable for its outsourcing labour policy. “Actually, the Philippine government is the worst trafficker. Why do they continue to send them, when they know for a fact what is going on?”

Through the United Nations, Japan donated over $2 million in March 2006 to assist returned trafficking survivors in Thailand and the Philippines. Implemented through the International Labour Organization, the program aims to facilitate reintegration through education, legal support, microlending, counselling, medical services and assistance in setting up self-help groups.

Nuqui believes the Philippine government must also work harder to create gainful employment for women at home, instead of putting them at risk for exploitation abroad. “Of the women I have met at DAWN, I have never heard anyone say, ‘I like my work in Japan better than what I am doing now,’” says Nuqui. “Given a chance, I don’t think anyone would choose sex work.”

Japan and Dolphins

By Lena Domroese, Earth Island Journal

During Japan Dolphin Day events in San Francisco, I visited the local Japanese consulate. I was curious what the response would be to an average citizen voicing concerns about Japan's annual dolphin slaughter, so I posed as a potential tourist who was affected by the protest and went to the Japanese Consulate's main office with an information package, including graphic files showing dolphins being killed, to speak with the Consulate staff.

The person in the visitor's information center nodded knowingly when I showed her the pictures and expressed how shocked I was.

"Yeah, it is a shocking picture, but you know, in my job, you sometimes have to set your personal beliefs aside," she said. This wasn't a satisfying statement to me, but she obviously didn't want to delve the subject any further. Instead, she offered to let me talk tc somebody who would.

Another woman entered the room. She looked very "official" and a little reserved. Nevertheless, she was very polite, and was willing to listen to what I had to say.

We sat there for about half an hour, often talking at cross-purposes. She said the Japanese didn't do anything that violated international whaling agreements. I reminded her the demonstration was about dolphins, not whales-1 referred to the NY Times ad in the package that supported the accusations of the activists - namely the senseless killing of thousands of dolphins in the process of selecting the "best-looking" ones for marine shows. The more we talked, the more she became interested in the matter, attempting to read the newspaper article with one eye during our conversation.

I apparently hit a sore spot by saying I was so shocked by all this that I was not sure anymore if I really wanted information on Japan as a future travel destination. She seemed very embarrassed and almost personally ashamed about the perception of Japan that other passers-by and I might have gathered from the pictures. She asked me to also look beyond this facet and see the culturally rich and beautiful aspects of her country. I almost felt sorry for her as she seemed to adopt more and more personal responsibility for the things happening in her country and looked quite distressed.

When we said good-bye, she thanked me for talking to her and for not being judgmental towards the country as a whole. She asked me to leave her the package (which I gladly agreed to do) and told me to contact her with more information or questions. When she handed me her business card, I learned that I had just met the director and consul of the Consulate General!

Japan: Trouble in Toyland

By Ian Rowley and Hiroko Tashiro, Business Week Online

The birth of an heir to the throne hasn't yet revived the sagging birth rate--or solved the problem of selling toys in an aging society

When Japan's Princess Kiko gave birth to a baby boy in September, stock prices of companies making baby-related products rose on hopes that the royal delivery might trigger a rise in the birthrate. One economist even reckoned the birth of an heir to the chrysanthemum throne could lead to a windfall of $1.4 billion for manufacturers of commemorative products, baby foods, and toys.

Japan's toymakers could certainly do with the help. Indeed, while they may have given the world Pokemon, Power Rangers, and Tamagotchi, for companies and shareholders there has been non-stop trouble in toyland.

Japan's rapidly aging population explains much of the turmoil. Toymakers' core consumers are fast becoming an endangered species. In 2005, Japan's birth rate slipped to just 1.26 births per woman compared to 1.29 a year earlier -- itself a record low. Meanwhile, 21% of Japanese are over 65 vs. 12.3% in the U.S.

Toys vs. Games All that is hurting toy sales. According to the Japan Toy Assn., domestic toy sales were $5.96 billion in 2005, a 1.7% decrease from the previous year. Over the last five years, the market has shrunk 4.7%. "Toymakers are facing severe circumstances," says Fumiaki Ibuki, editor of the Toy Journal, an industry trade magazine.

This year will almost certainly be worse. One big reason is that competition from video games is higher than ever. This winter, Sony's (SNE) PlayStation3 and Nintendo's (NTDOY) Wii, both newly launched, will rank high on many wish lists of gamers young and old.

Meanwhile, sales of handheld game machines, like Nintendo's DS [which has sold over 15 million units in Japan this year] also remain strong. According to Enterbrain, a Japanese publisher of video game magazines, industry sales through Dec. 10 were $4.5 billion -- already 17% higher than the whole of last year with the busiest two weeks of the year still to run.

Scrambling for New Strategies

Add to that mobile phones with sophisticated games, music players, and other gizmos and the size of the task facing toymakers is larger than ever [see Coolest Mobile Phones in the World].

Small wonder, then, that Japan's big-name toymakers are scrambling for new strategies. High on the priority list is making toys with appeal that goes way beyond kids. Last month, for example, Bandai (BNWKF) launched Ant Life Studio, an interactive desktop toy which involves watching digital ants looking after their queen.

That might seem zany but Bandai reckons folks will enjoy unwinding after a hard day at work by watching digital ants working hard. [This is, after all, Japan.] "The product is being received well with men in their thirties and forties," says Tsuyoshi Iwamura, who has led the development and marketing of Ant Life Studio at Bandai. "We wanted a grown-up version of Tamagotchi."

"Cradle to the Grave"

Sega Toy's (SGAYF) Homestar is another successful example of a toy for adults that is a hit. Using a built-in projector, the Homestar turns a living room into a planetarium, complete with 10,000 stars. It has sold 100,000 units since August, 2005.

Tomy has also scored a hit selling a low-cost electric potter's wheel called Rokuro Club. At about $95, the wheel is a fraction of the cost of a real one and is proving popular among men in their forties and fifties. Market watchers say toys for grownups makes sense financially. While the toy market as a whole is stagnant at best, the segment aimed at the more mature is growing at 10% to 20% annually and already worth $430 million a year. "Toy companies are trying to expand the market by increasing their target age range from the cradle to the grave," says the Toy Journal's Ibuki.

Toymakers are also looking to branch out into new areas. Bandai, for instance, has opened a boutique in Tokyo's fashionable Harajuku district. The brightly decorated shop sells specially designed clothes and other goods. Its target customers are women in their twenties and thirties. "We wanted to develop an adult apparel business," says Mikako Fuse, who leads the new apparel business project and the store. One hot-selling product at the shop is a range of colorful briefs for women, designed by Fuse.

Betting on Mergers

Toymakers are also betting on mergers and acquisitions. In September, 2005, game developer Namco and toymaker Bandai merged to form Namco Bandai Holdings, hoping to find synergies spanning the two industries. In March, Tomy acquired rival Takara (TKLLF) and has since taken a 10% stake in Epoch (EPHC), another toymaker. And Sega Toys parent Sega Sammy Holdings is now the biggest shareholder in Sanrio, known around the world for Hello Kitty.

"We will undertake mergers and acquisitions as needed," Namco Bandai chief Takeo Takasu told a Japanese newspaper in late November. His company won't be the only one. Yet, like so many Japanese companies taxed by Japan's unfavorable demographics, overseas growth looks the most likely savior for toymakers. Tomy, for instance, plans to double its China network to 500 stores by 2008 and increase sales [including those of Takara] from $4.3 million to over $50 million by 2008.

In India, Tomy is selling spinning tops this year. Rival Bandai has opened a new sales unit in Guangzhou, and plans to add a new toy character designed just for China. Bandai also began showing the Power Rangers TV show in India earlier this year.

Of course, overseas expansion isn't risk-free. For one thing, like video games, toys popular in Japan don't always travel well. What's more, piracy remains a problem in some markets. Yet unless more Japanese follow Princess Kiko's lead -- the wife of Prince Akishino now has three children -- Japan's toymakers will have little option but to expand their horizons.

Tokyo ups arthouse ante

By Mark Schilling, Variety

Plush Eurospace helps revive seedy 'hood

Japan is the world's second-largest film market; Tokyo, with a metro area of more than 20 million people, is that market's thriving hub. And only in Tokyo are Japanese likely to visit cinemas more than once or twice a year.

The city, particularly its entertainment centers of Shinjuku, Shibuya and the Ginza, is home to more arthouses than probably anywhere else on the planet.

Shibuya alone boasts 23 theaters and 37 screens within a 12-minute walk of the central train station. Most of them are showing indie films, including European, Asian and Japanese titles that rarely play in North America outside a film festival or rep house.

Also, the number of these venues -- called mini theaters in Japan -- has been growing this decade. Among the newest -- and oldest -- is Eurospace, which in January opened a new two-screen venue in a Shibuya neighborhood that's a mix of trendy clubs and not-so-trendy "love hotels," where the guests rent rooms in three-hour blocks.

Eurospace started business at its old location near Shibuya Station in 1982, when there were only a handful of arthouses in the city.

It developed a loyal following with pioneering screenings of films by Wong Kar Wai, Abbas Kiarostami and Kazuo Hara, as well as work by acclaimed younger filmmakers like Kenji Uchida ("A Stranger of Mine") and Naoko Oginome ("Barber Yoshino").

But Shibuya is changing -- and Eurospace decided to change with it.

"Our old facilities were too cramped," says Eurospace manager Masato Hojo. The new location is not only on cheaper land but, Hojo explains, it's part of the Shibuya Ward government's 10-year area redevelopment plan.

In other words: Bye-bye cheesy love hotels, hello new theaters -- like Eurospace 1 and 2.

With state-of-the-art DLP projection and Dolby sound systems, such theaters are no longer luxuries in the arthouse business, but necessities.

"Baby boomers would put up with crappy facilities because that was the only way they could see certain films; younger audiences don't have the patience for that," Hojo explains.

Mini theaters

They are, however, flocking to the new theaters that have popped up in Shibuya in recent years, including the 40-seat "mini-minis" like Uplink X, Rise X and Cine La Sept that are annexes to larger, more established venues Uplink, Cinema Rise and Cinema East West.

To Hojo, however, the current boom has the look of a bubble. "Audiences have been turning away from foreign artfilms for about five years now," he notes. "These new theaters exist mostly because the Japanese industry has been making more films and needs more places to show them."

The numbers back him up: In 2001, the Japanese film industry released 281 films; in 2005, there were 356 -- and many of them end up in Shibuya.

Among Eurospace's recent hits is "Who's Camus Anyway?" a drama by veteran Mitsuo Yanagimachi that screened in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes last year.

But the theater's schedule is also filled with films from elsewhere, including the currently playing Hong Kong toon "McDull -- Prince de la Bun" and music docu "Touch the Sound."

The same is true of other Shibuya arthouses, which find space for "Brokeback Mountain" and "Hotel Rwanda," but often join Eurospace in scheduling films from Europe and Asia that may play nowhere else in Japan.

"Shibuya is more adventurous than Shinjuku or the Ginza," says Hojo. "They haven't had the type of theater boom we've have here -- their business culture is more conservative."

And Tokyo as a whole? "You can see more movies here than anywhere else in the world," he says. "That's not going to change soon."

Awash in memories of Japanese tradition, a wooden stump conceals a soaking tub

When this wooden stump, located in the back of a Tokyo residence, is covered, it's not readily apparent what purpose it serves aside from making a rustic dining table. But the stump, made from a cedar tree roughly 200 years old, is hollow, and its core, 4 feet wide and 3 feet deep, contains a soaking tub filled with hot spring water.

Light has symbolic cleansing properties, so it's fitting that this "stump tub" sits in a fully glazed solarium, allowing bathers to submerge themselves in both water and light, says architect Kei Sano. It's also fitting, he believes, that the solarium is the vestibule to a Kura (private museum) dedicated to the work of Mukai Junkichi, an artist celebrated for his depictions of traditional Japanese thatched farmhouses.

Junkichi lived near this estate in Setagaya, a highly developed Tokyo suburb. "His paintings make us nostalgic for the good old rural life and remind us that this area was nicer, even though nowadays it's much too modernized," Sano says. Ironically, spring bathing is another tradition that's changed: The water for this tub arrives from the mountains every two weeks by way of a 4-ton tanker truck.

Architect: Sano Kei Architects

General contractor: Mizusawa Komuten

Sources: Moulder Special Company (tree stump tub manufacturer)

Bobby Ologun was just on TV

The following video was captured about 20 minutes ago from Fuji Television’s Viking obstacle course program.
Yep, it’s Bobby Ologun, who supposedly ended his career in scandal back in January. Is this a sign that Bobby is making a come back? Probably not, since many of the celebs who appeared on the program were washed-up minor celebrities.
Update: A Japanese friend recalls seeing Bobby on another TV show recently, although the friend’s memory isn’t very clear. Anyone have some Bobby sightings to report?

Japan Ichiban

In pure nihonjinron style, Abe finished his policy speech in the Diet with the following words, according to the Mainichi:
"In his conclusion, Abe called for people to maintain Japanese traditional virtues by quoting the famous physicist Albert Einstein: "I wish they don't forget to keep those treasures pure which they have in excellence over the west: their artistic building of life, the simplicity and modesty in personal need, and the pureness and calmness of Japanese soul."

Abe uses inaugural policy speech to call for flexing of Japan's military muscle (Mainichi - 2006/9/29)