Photo/Illutration The Metropolitan Police Department’s headquarters in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Five people believed to be leaders of a loosely organized human-trafficking ring were arrested on suspicion of recruiting debt-ridden women on social media to work in the sex trade, police said.

Kazuma Endo, 33, and the others introduced four women in their 20s to a brothel in Beppu, Oita Prefecture, between July 2022 and April this year, Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department said on Nov. 19.

The MPD believes the suspected recruiters used social media platform X to target women who were saddled with debts to host clubs and other establishments that they frequented.

Offered work to pay off their debts, the applicants sent photographs of their faces and their physical characteristics, such as height and weight. This data was presented to sex trade businesses around the country, police said.

The suspects then introduced the women to the interested business that offered the highest pay. They received 15 percent of the women’s earnings as a commission, police said.

The MPD suspects the five suspects received hundreds of millions of yen in commissions by introducing women to about 350 sex trade shops in 46 of the nation’s 47 prefectures.

Introducing women for prostitution purposes is prohibited by the Employment Security Law, which punishes those who have “carried out or engaged in employment placement, labor recruitment or labor supply with an intention of having workers do work harmful to public health or morals.”

TARGETING COMMISSIONS

Women introduced to the sex trade by recruiters have consulted with Nippon Kakekomidera, a support group based in Tokyo’s Kabukicho red-light district.

Many became addicted to host clubs and ended up in heavy debt to these nightclubs or the male companions.

Yoshihide Tanaka, the group’s secretary-general, said some women apply for jobs posted on social media by recruiters on their own initiative. Others are referred to specific recruiters by their favorite hosts.

“A sort of human-trafficking route has been established,” Tanaka said.

An expert panel formed by the National Police Agency in July is discussing measures to regulate heinous host clubs and is expected to compile a report this year.

One issue under discussion is how to deal with sex trade businesses that pay part of the women’s earnings to recruiters as a commission, an act that is not explicitly controlled by law.

“If (payments from) sex trade shops are regulated by law, they will become unable to accept women through recruiters,” Tanaka said. “It is important to cut off the brokerage route.”

(This article was compiled from reports by Shun Yoshimura and Daichi Itakura.)

Related News