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Soliciting for oldest
trade with Shibuya-style spin
By Hiroshi Matsubara
April 17, 2004
Announcements at a JR Shibuya Station exit warn people to be on guard for strangers approaching them, and police outside are on constant watch to ensure pedestrians aren't accosted.
Both efforts apparently do little to prevent such encounters, which usually involve a young man soliciting a young female stranger to get involved in various "night entertainment" businesses, or in discouraging the woman from listening to the spiel.
"They are annoying. But it is one of the inevitable risks women walking in Shibuya face," said a 19-year-old vocational school student from Kawasaki, after being stopped for 15 minutes by one such "scout" clad in black suit. She said the man asked her to work in a sex parlor.
Such encounters are a common scene in popular, trendy urban districts frequented by young people - young men tenaciously attempting to persuade young women to work in the "adult entertainment business."
In fact, such so-called recruiters make up a growing, and thriving industry that not only caters to the sex trade but draws a percentage like a pimp off those it gets into it.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has taken the first step to curb such solicitation, but insiders in the soliciting trade argue that such activities have become an essential component of adult industries and one unlikely to disappear anytime soon.
The metro government move was to recently amend an ordinance for "maintaining a healthy social environment for minors" to keep people under age 18 out of the sex industry, a goal that seems increasingly elusive amid the thriving street soliciting trade.
The revised ordinance, which takes full effect in June, aims to penalize people who get minors involved in activities illegal for youth.
People who solicited minors to work illegally or to use adult entertainment services, such as host clubs, will receive a warning first. A fine of up to 300,000 yen would accompany a second warning.
The metro government also tightened restrictions on publications deemed harmful to minors and expanded a list of entertainment facilities where entry by minors is banned between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., including karaoke parlors.
By law, adult entertainment businesses can be penalized for employing minors, but there is no law against introducing minors to such businesses.
Metro officials have meanwhile voiced doubts that the new ordinance will effectively curb the soliciting of minors.
One reason is that a man approaching a woman on the street may have other, legitimate, goals in mind, such as religious recruitment or a modeling job, or he may just want a date.
Although the metro officials said they hope the ordinance will discourage young men from approaching young girls, people involved in the soliciting business pointed out that their ranks are in high demand from various adult entertainment establishments, and thus their activities will not disappear anytime soon.
"Just waiting for girls whose looks are above average to knock on the door (of a sex parlor) won't work. That is why the street scouts have become increasingly prosperous despite persistent social outcries," said Yoshiaki Suzuki, 50, a veteran in the trade.
He also claimed the largest source of girls even for prestigious model and talent agency jobs is the street.
"Professional scouts" began showing up on Tokyo's streets in the mid-1970s, first trying to get women to register at modeling agencies, and later trying to recruit nude models and porn stars.
As the soliciting industry grew, its ranks branched out in the 1990s to recruit women to work in hostess bars, sex parlors and other adult businesses, Suzuki said.
It was also common to see people aggressively trying to sell young women on the street expensive cosmetics and beauty products.
The soliciting business meanwhile became more organized, and as demand grew, young part-timers started to enter the business, lured by the promise of earning a lot of money.
And now, it is not only young men who do the approaching. Young women have also entered the soliciting business.
A 30-year-old man who has worked the streets of Shibuya every day for two years said he is registered at one of the largest such soliciting enterprises, which employs more than 200 scouts.
His job is to get phone numbers and addresses of young women so he can meet them later to persuade them to join the sex industry.
For each woman he introduces to a hostess bar, the establishment will pay him between 50,000 yen and 100,000 yen.
Bringing women into the sex trade is the most lucrative. He said his colleagues receive 10 percent of the monthly income of every woman who stays in the business.
The 30-year-old, who asked not to be named, said there are some days on Shibuya's streets when he fails to obtain a single phone number.
But thanks largely to commissions from six girls he introduced to sex parlors, he manages to earn an average of 400,000 yen a month.
In the final analysis, the soliciting business can only prosper if women continue to be receptive to it.
While many young women feel annoyed by being approached by a stranger on the street, one 19-year-old in Shibuya said, "I might get a little sad if nobody comes up to me."
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