What is Happening in the Far East — Culture May Allow Japan to Abuse More Kids

Are you uninterested in Japan because it is so far east? Well, an important friendship between Japan and the US has been maintained since the San Francisco Peace Treaty, so it is worth taking a look at what your Eastern ‘friend’ is doing.

During class discussion, people were saying that slavery is a huge problem in the US –according to the Global Slavery Index, the estimated enslaved population in the US is 60,100 out of the total population of 318.9 million. In Japan, the estimated enslaved population is 237,500 out of the total population of 127.3 million. It is four times worse than the US. What is wrong with the country?

Japan is the only G8 country that is not a member of the Trafficking Protocol (UN TIP Protocol) adopted by the United Nations in 2000, which defines human trafficking and the measures that need to be taken against it.

Much of the enslaved population in Japan are abused as sex slaves, and my assumption here is many of them are children. Some possible reasons why Japan has so many child sex slaves can be related to Japanese society’s tolerance toward child pornography. In most countries around the globe, child porn is rigidly restricted. However, in Japan child porn animations are permitted because some consider it a part of Japanese culture, which used to have such a time that it was normal for old men to have those relationships with kids (although that was 1000 years ago or more).

Animation is also a huge business in Japan that can be exported abroad. This cultural aspect allows people to excuse their abnormal propensity, and as a result this encourages traffickers to abuse more children as sex laborers.

Although this cannot be the only reason why Japan has so many slaves, this is one of the ways to think about the issue.