By HIROKI ITO/ Correspondent
November 8, 2025 at 17:56 JST
Thai newspapers publish reports about a 12-year-old girl taken into custody in Tokyo. (Eishiro Takeishi)
BANGKOK—Taiwan officials have arrested the mother of a 12-year-old Thai girl she abandoned and forced to work in a Tokyo massage parlor to provide sexual services to customers.
Tokyo police have taken the girl into protective custody as a victim of human trafficking.
According to Taiwanese immigration officials, the mother is being detained at a facility in New Taipei City in northern Taiwan. She entered Taiwan in September and has overstayed her visa.
After Taiwan police arrested her, she was turned over to the immigration authorities.
According to Thai media reports, Kitrat Phanphet, the head of the Royal Thai Police, on Nov. 7 said they had learned that the mother was in Taiwan.
A high-ranking Thai police officer said Taiwan authorities informed them on Nov. 7 that the mother had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in prostitution.
Thai police had asked their Taiwan counterparts to search for the mother, who will likely be turned over to Thai police.
The girl told the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department that her mother worked in the sex industry in Singapore and Taiwan from a base in Japan.
The girl lived with her grandparents in Thailand and spent almost no time with her mother.
Thai girl, 12, left in sex parlor waited in vain for mother’s help
November 7, 2025
Tokyo police suspect human trafficking of Thai girl, 12
November 6, 2025
Girl, 15, said Shibuya stabbing was a dry run for killing her family
August 22, 2022
Teen held in Shibuya stabbing said she hoped to get death penalty
August 21, 2022
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
