Tokyo police arrest seven alleged Kabukicho scouts
Tokyo Metropolitan Police announced the arrest of seven men in their twenties on suspicion of violating the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Concerning the Prevention of Disturbing the Peace.
The arrests were announced on June 25. The men are alleged to have been scouts luring women to work at hostess clubs and brothels in the Kabukicho area of Shinjuku, central Tokyo.
The men are thought to be members of the largest scouting group in Japan called Natural. Two of the men have admitted the charge, while the other five claim they are not scouts and did not recruit women.
The arrests are the latest chapter in an ongoing police crackdown on illegal activities in Kabukicho, which used to swarm with street scouts offering to take men to everything from a regular izakaya to a brothel, and trying to recruit women for “modeling” services.
According to police, the seven alleged scouts approached women walking in Kabukicho from November last year to this March. They initially chatted the women up and exchanged LINE contact details with them, but their ultimate aim was to recruit them to work as hostesses and prostitutes. They were caught because one of the women they attempted to recruit was actually an undercover police officer.
Kabukicho is one of the largest red-light districts in Tokyo, if not Japan, but has experienced a lot of redevelopment and gentrification in recent years as part of preparations for the 2020 Olympics and the massive tourism boom the country is experiencing. The central streets of the district are now filled with foreign visitors, including families, keen to snap selfies with the Godzilla on the top of the Toho building.
This is at odds with the long-established darker history of the district, not to mention the current issue with the underage kids hanging out there at night, where they are likely to be solicited, recruited, or otherwise exploited.
The backstreets remain full of brothels, and the main hub is adjacent to several blocks with large numbers of love hotels, hostess and host clubs, and other seedy establishments.
Police have been cracking down on the promiscuous signs of prostitution in the area, especially at nearby Okubo Park, which has become a stronghold of streetwalkers, mostly very young women.
An easy target have been the neighborhood’s concafes and host clubs, whose payment system leaves vulnerable women in debt and so more likely to engage in compensated dating and prostitution. Some hosts have effectively become pimps.
