Women-only cars fail to combat rampant groping on
trains
Groping attacks and other harassment against women commuters
increased on some Tokyo-area train lines last year, despite the
rising numbers of women-only cars, officials said.
The overall number of reported groping cases in Tokyo dropped
slightly in 2005, but authorities are worried by marked incidents
of the attacks on a number of lines that introduced or increased
women-only cars last year, police said.
"We've been calling on passengers to prevent such nuisances on
trains with announcements and posters, but there were still victims
and there were calls" for women-only trains, said JR East spokesman
Yuichi Ogasawara.
Anonymous groping of women on Japan's crowded train lines has long
been a social concern.
Passengers during rush-hour are often so jam-packed they are
immobilized in a crush of bodies and victims have no way of
escaping. Offenders can easily disappear into the crowd at the
station.
A dozen train operators introduced or increased the number of
women-only cars in Tokyo last year in hopes of providing some
separation of the sexes on crowded lines.
The number of reported cases of groping and other lewd behavior
toward women and girls -- including secretly taking photographs --
dropped in Tokyo from a record high 2,201 in 2004 to 2,137 in 2005,
a fall of about 3 percent.
Arrests for such crimes in the capital were also down from 1,897 in
2004 to 1,853 in 2005, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan
Police.
But the number of arrests on JR East's Chuo Line as well as Keio
Corp.'s Keio Line, both linking eastern and western Tokyo, rose
after adding women-only cars.
The groping arrests on the Chuo Line, which introduced women only
cars last September, went up to 217 in 2005, the highest among all
lines in the Tokyo area, from 188 in 2004.
On the Keio Line, which first introduced women-only trains in 2001
for late night riders and extended the service to rush hours last
year, there were 146 arrests in 2005, up from 122 the year
before.
Of the 66 train lines linking Tokyo and neighboring cities operated
by 16 companies, 26 lines by 12 companies have introduced
women-only cars, according to a national daily newspaper.
If convicted, gropers can face to up to 10 years in prison in most
severe cases.