Single mom brainwashed by Tokyo couple into prostitution

A Japanese married couple has pleaded guilty to forcing a 25-year-old single mom into prostitution.

The single mother was staying with them. As payment for laundry and other costs, they made her work as a prostitute, according to media reports of the trial at Tokyo District Court, which began in May.

There were 334 acts of alleged prostitution in six months. The mother was apparently brainwashed by the couple and sent out into the local area to pick up clients.

Prosecutors are seeking a custodial sentence of 2.5 years for the couple.

The single mother was working as a hostess and giving some money to the couple, but then quit her job and started working as a prostitute at a fuzoku (brothel), in part because the couple raised the money they were demanding from her.

Urged by the couple, this apparently later evolved into picking up clients on her own to cut out the middleman.

Because she had no cash and was leaving her child at home with the couple, the woman felt like she could not escape. Media reports have characterized it as a kind of brainwashing.