According to the United States' State Department, Japan is a major destination, source, and transit country for men and women subjected to

forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...

and

sex trafficking Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Se ...

. Victims of human trafficking include male and female migrant workers, women and children lured to

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

by fraudulent marriages and forced into prostitution, as well as

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

nationals, "particularly runaway teenage girls and foreign-born children of Japanese citizens who acquired nationality." 'According to the 2024 U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, The Government of Japan does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.' U.S. State Department's

Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (J/TIP) is an agency within the United States Department of State charged with investigating and creating programs to prevent human trafficking both within the United States and internation ...

placed the country in "Tier 2" in 2024. Japan ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol on July 11, 2017. In 2005

Irene Khan Irene Zubaida Khan (; born 24 December 1956) is a Bangladeshi British lawyer and human rights activist. She is serving as the United Nations Special Rapporteur for freedom of expression and opinion. She previously served as the seventh Secreta ...

, then the

Secretary General Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, Power (social and political), power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the org ...

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

, stated that the country received the largest number of trafficked persons globally, with the most common points of origin of victims being

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

, and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

History

''Karayuki-san'' was the name given to Japanese girls and women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who were trafficked from poverty stricken agricultural prefectures in Japan to destinations in

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

(

Russian Far East The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Easte ...

Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...

, and

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

to serve as prostitutes and sexually serviced men from a variety of races, including Chinese, Europeans, native Southeast Asians, and others.

Sex trafficking

Japanese and foreign women and girls have been victims of sex trafficking in Japan. They are raped in brothels and other locations and experience physical and psychological trauma.

Labor trafficking

Japan has a declining population, and is therefore experiencing an extreme labor shortage. As a result, it is an attractive destination for foreign migrant workers, especially from South East Asian countries. Many workers enter the country on a student visa as part of the Technical Intern Training Program, a government sanctioned program where workers can learn a trade while earning a living. The original intent of the program was positive, but due to many loopholes there is widespread exploitation of the vulnerability of workers. The government has now decided to abandon the program, but it will take several years to implement the changes and critics are not convinced that it will solve the problem.

Child trafficking in Japan

The commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in Japan take the form of exploiting children under 18 for prostitution or child sexual abuse material. Increasingly, children are also the victims of online sextortion, coerced into producing nude images or videos of themselves and then extorted for money or more images. These images may be sold online or on the dark web. The sexual objectification of children through manga, anime and other art forms is normalized in society, and the general public does not consider it to contribute to the physical exploitation of children. This kind of content is not illegal in Japan. In performing arts, sexual objectification of children is also normalized in the country's J-POP Idol industry. The decades long sex trafficking of Japanese boys by

Johnny Kitagawa John Hiromu Kitagawa (Japanese name ; October 23, 1931 – July 9, 2019), known professionally as , was a Japanese business magnate, promoter, record producer. He was best known as the founder of Johnny & Associates, a talent agency for numerous ...

was exposed in a BBC documentary in 2023, and came as a huge shock to the nation.

References

{{Asia topic, Human trafficking in Human rights abuses in Japan

History

Sex trafficking

Labor trafficking

Child trafficking in Japan

See also

References