"Shibuya has this image of being a youth-centered, bright part of town, but from
the middle of the night to the early hours of the morning, it's a real Sodom
and Gomorrah. Photos I've taken show stuff like the streets being filled with
kids coming home from all-night jaunts at nightclubs, girls sprawled on
sidewalks not caring at all that they're showing off their panties for all the
world to see and kids beaten to a pulp over the tiniest disagreement" Ikko
Kagari, a photojournalist who has covered Shibuya for over 30 years, tells
Friday.
A few years ago, things were hairy in the entertainment district. The weekly
says foreign drug dealers were everywhere and gangs roamed the Shibuya streets.
A harder line taken by authorities was supposed to have wiped out these less
appealing elements.
"Shibuya has definitely lost the risky types that used to be around. It's
definitely a much safer place," a streetside talent scout says.
Nonetheless, Shibuya remains a magnet for runaway schoolgirls and the streets
have junior high school girl runaways selling their bodies off, high school
girls regularly indulging in hard drugs and other teens using fake IDs to find
jobs working in the sex business.
Police efforts to crack down on enjo kosai -- the euphemistic expression
translated as "compensated dating" that is used to describe mostly teenage
prostitution -- were supposed to have worked, but the girls on the streets of
Shibuya tell a different story.
"If the cops in Shibuya are giving us a hard time, we just go somewhere else,"
a first-year high school girl engaging in enjo kosai tells Friday. "We can go
to places like (other Tokyo districts) Ikebukuro or Uguisudani, where the cops
aren't so strict and there're still lots of love hotels around to do business
in. It's not a problem at all."
Drugs were largely unknown among Japanese youth as recently as a decade ago.
Now, they're becoming more prevalent, with marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy
regularly shared around amongst groups of young friends, some of who admit to
having some concern about cops or probation officers.
"Not so long ago, you could go to clubs and share drugs around with complete
strangers and not worry about trouble," the street side talent scout says.
"Now, people make sure they only get drugs off people they know, or people
they've been introduced to by somebody they trust."
Finding a friend to trust in Shibuya is not as hard as it seems, according to
one schoolgirl.
"Every time I come to Shibuya I always run into at least one friend. It's
really easy to find the type of friend who can get you things like fake IDs or
drugs," she says.
But the weekly notes that a lot of these "friends" are also introducing young
girls into the world of enjo kosai, getting them to go into the flesh trade to
fund lifestyles filled with drug taking and carousing at host clubs.
"There are lots of girls around me who do nothing but have a good time. Their
senses become kinda paralyzed and they have no idea what they're doing is gonna
hurt them," another schoolgirl says. "Personally, I don't think it's a real
good idea."
Casting a creepy presence on the sidelines of Shibuya's sleaze are the yakuza.
"At first, you can get all sorts of drugs for free. But, once you're hooked and
can't live without them, they make you go into enjo kosai or hostessing to make
money for them. There's heaps of girls who can't give up the life of selling
their bodies," a 17-year-old girl working in Shibuya tells Friday. "Most of the
drugs are given out by guys aged around 20 or so. But the yakuza are behind
these guys for sure."
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