Seems to be no stop to teen prostitution
A teenage girl fiddles with her cell phone outside Uguisudani
Station in Tokyo on a recent weekday afternoon. She stands out in
this gritty neighborhood, with her brightly dyed blond hair, denim
miniskirt, and blouse opened to reveal a cleavage.
In a few minutes, a man in his 30s arrives from the station,
wearing glasses and looking as geeky as the girl looks garish. The
two exchange a few words before heading to the nearest love
hotel.
About an hour later, the couple emerges and momentarily parts ways.
That's when a Friday reporter stops the girl to ask her what's she
been doing. Turning tricks for money, perhaps?
She nods. Her name is Eri, she tells the magazine. She's 15 and has
been living on the streets of Tokyo, namely in the youth mecca of
Shibuya, since May.
As for her livelihood, she supports herself by dating and sleeping
with men much older than herself, in a practice well-known in Japan
called enjo kosai, which literally means "assisted dating."
Much has been written and discussed about this form of teenage
prostitution. Even so, Friday decides to revisit the topic now that
summer's here, when hundreds of teenage girls like Eri converge on
Shibuya, not just to hang out but to camp out on the streets and
make some quick cash in the process.
Eri says her decision to become a street kid was hardly a matter of
choice.
"My mother is terribly violent," she says. "Once when I made
dinner, she complained that there wasn't any soup and not enough
vegetables, so she smashed my face on the corner of a garbage
can."
She sleeps in coffee shops and love hotels, and meets with her
johns outside Shibuya due to a public-morals crackdown in the
district.
Yet even though the plight of girls like Eri has received a barrage
of attention in recent years, it seems the enjo-kosai problem has
gotten worse rather than better, Friday discovers.
"The ages of people doing it are always getting lower, with an
increase in the number of junior-high schoolers," says a tout who
has worked Shibuya's streets for years. "But what's more, there are
a lot more regular girls . . . from good schools on the
game."
That's the case with Sa-yaka. Like Eri, she's 15. Unlike Eri, she
has a comfortable home to return to each night. Her motivation for
regularly heading to Shibuya is purely materialistic.
"When I see something I like, I can't help myself -- I just buy
it," she says. "I read magazines and see cute clothes and
accessories, which are sold in Shibuya. You can't get them in the
local places."
Sayaka recalls her first john, a guy in his 40s wearing a suit, who
paid her 15,000 yen one night last year. They went to a karaoke
booth, it started with fondling and then went a lot further.
"I was just happy to get money so easily," she says.
Such "easy" earnings, notes Friday, are plowed back into Shibuya's
glittery shops and nightlife. In the process, the district becomes
all the more attractive to teenage girls in need of quick
cash.