We use cookies to improve our service for you. You can find more information in our data protection declaration. An activist who escaped the 'joshi kosei' JK business says thousands of high-school girls in Tokyo alone have been lured into selling themselves for easy money.
DW's Tokyo correspondent Julian Ryall reports. It is an early Saturday evening and Akihabara - known around the world as the place to go in Tokyo for the latest electronic gadgets and "otaku" collectibles - is thrumming.
Neon flashes and barkers entice passers-by with offers of the newest releases. The area around the station is packed with people leaving with their purchases and others arriving to join the melee. Akihabara sprawls over several blocks in all directions, but consumers are not only here to purchase hardware.
Tsukumo Dori runs parallel to the main thoroughfare in Akihabara, but is a narrower street lined at ground level by stores selling every conceivable electronic device. About a decade ago, however, a new type of seller appeared here. Today, every couple of meters down both sides of the street are girls in their mid-to-late-teens handing out fliers and encouraging male passers-by to step into a nearby stairwell that will take them to a "cafe" on an upper level.
They wear schoolgirl uniforms with revealingly low skirts and their shirts are undone at the neck; others wear clothes similar to those worn by famous "manga" characters. More menacing are the young men who stand back and monitor what the girls are doing.
