By SHIMPACHI YOSHIDA/ Staff Writer
March 13, 2023 at 17:32 JST
Manga and leaflets inform girls that they can seek help when someone requests nude selfies or when they became victims of pornography. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
The biggest demographic committing child pornography crimes in Japan is a group of people not that much older than the victims, newly released police data shows.
Among the child pornography offenders referred to prosecutors last year, 44.1 percent were teenagers, nearly double their share from a decade earlier, according to data released by the National Police Agency.
“Children are often both victims and perpetrators of such cases,” an NPA official said.
Those in their 20s accounted for 22.6 percent of the offenders, followed by 15.0 percent in their 30s and 11.1 percent in their 40s.
Back in 2013, those in their 30s made up the largest age group, followed by those in their 20s and teens. Teens accounted for 22.7 percent of all offenders in 2013.
About 60 percent of teen offenders are high school students while 20 percent are junior high school students.
By category among teen offenders, 40.2 percent of the violations were secretly taking pictures and video or persuading victims to send nudes. That was followed closely by violations for posting such content online, at 39.6 percent. Most of these offenders were males, according to the NPA.
A large chunk of the victims, 38.8 percent, in 2022 were minors who took selfies, while 16.9 percent were filmed secretly, and 15.7 percent were victims filmed during prostitution or sex.
The number of child pornography victims under the age of 18 remains high.
The figure for 2022--1,487, up by 29 from the previous year--is the second highest since Japan enacted the law against child prostitution and pornography in 1999.
And it is alarmingly close to the record, which was set in 2019 at 1,559 people.
Police reported 3,035 cases of child pornography in 2022, up 66 from the previous year. Of those, police arrested 2,053 offenders and referred them to prosecutors--up 64 people year over year.
The number of child victims is up 2.3 times from a decade ago, while the number of cases detected by police increased by 1.8 times.
The number of children who became victims through people they met on social media was almost flat, at 1,732 last year.
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