Online comments accused Rika Shiiki of lying and being a publicity hound when she tweeted that she lost business contracts after refusing to have sex with clients. Some said that by agreeing to dine with a man, she led him on.
"The comments I received were disproportionately negative,” the 20-year-old university student and entrepreneur told a TV talk show in December. “We need to create a society where we can speak up. Otherwise sexual harassment and other misconduct will persist forever.”
In a patriarchal society where women have long taken the blame, many victims try to forget attacks and harassment instead of seeking support and justice, said Mari Miura, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.
“Japan lacks such a sisterhood,” she said. “It’s an exhausting and intimidating process. … It’s quite natural that victims feel reluctant to speak up.”
One woman, journalist Shiori Ito, went public last year. She held a news conference after prosecutors decided not to press charges against a prominent TV newsman whom she had accused of raping her after he invited her to discuss job opportunities over dinner and drinks in 2015.
Many online comments criticized her for speaking out, looking too seductive and ruining the life of a prominent figure. Some women called her an embarrassment, she told The Associated Press.
The October release of Ito’s book “Blackbox” detailing her ordeal came as the #MeToo phenomenon was making headlines in America. It prompted some discussion in Japan, but only a handful of other women came forward.
“Many people think Shiori’s problem has nothing to do with them … and that’s why #MeToo isn’t growing in Japan,” said lawyer Yukiko Tsunoda, an expert on sex crimes.In Japan, sexually assaulted women are traditionally called “the flawed,” she said.
Nearly three quarters of rape victims said they had never told anyone, and just over 4 percent had gone to police, according to a 2015 government survey. The study found that one in 15 Japanese women had been raped or forced to have sex.
Justice Ministry statistics show only one-third of rape cases go to court, and punishment is not severe. Of the 1,678 people tried for sexual assault in 2017, only 285, or 17 percent, were sentenced to prison for three years or longer. In November, Yokohama prosecutors, without saying why, dropped the case against six students from a leading university who had been arrested for the alleged gang-rape of a teenage female student after getting her drunk. The university expelled three of them.
Popular writer Haruka Ito, who goes by the pen name Ha-Chu, was criticized after revealing in December that she had faced sexual and other harassment by a senior male employee when both worked at Dentsu, Japan’s largest advertising agency.
The alleged harasser, whom she identified by name, apologized in a statement and quit as head of his own company, though he denied the harassment was sexual.
Ha-chu said in a statement that she initially tried to endure and forget the ordeal, fearing that exposing it would hurt her image and cause problems for her former colleagues. After news of the journalist Ito’s case and the #MeToo movement, “I decided to speak out,” she said.
Conformist pressure in Japan discourages women from speaking out or saying “no” to many things, including unwanted sex, said Saori Ikeuchi, a former lawmaker and gender diversity activist.
That mindset has silenced virtually all of Japan’s so-called “comfort
women,” who were sexually abused as prostitutes for the wartime
military, while Japan has shown little sympathy to victims from Korea
and elsewhere, she said.
Ito, the journalist, said that after she became dizzy and passed out in a restroom, her alleged attacker, Noriyuki Yamaguchi, took her to his hotel room and raped her while she was incapacitated.
The alleged assault was just the beginning of her ordeal, Ito said. The women’s clinic she visited the next day lacked expertise on rape, and a rape victim support center refused to give her advice on the phone. Police required her to recount the ordeal repeatedly and to demonstrate it with a life-sized doll, she said.
Ito said it took three weeks to get police to accept her criminal complaint and start investigating. She held a news conference in May, announcing that she had requested a court-appointed citizens’ panel to review the decision to drop the case. The inquest in September agreed with the decision not to indict.
Yamaguchi has denied any wrongdoing in published articles and on Facebook. Ito has filed a civil lawsuit against him, demanding 10 million yen ($93,000) in compensation for her suffering from the alleged rape, and seeking any clues as to why he was let go and never arrested.
“I thought about how I could change the situation, and I had no choice but to speak out about my experience,” she said.
「どうすれば状況を変えることができるかと考えたとき、自身の体験を語るしか選択肢がなかった」
伊藤氏はこう語った。
A group of opposition lawmakers has started its own investigation, seeking to find if the charges were dropped because of Yamaguchi’s connections to powerful political officials.
National Police Agency official Junichiro Kan told the lawmakers at a recent hearing that Ito’s case was properly handled. Police say they have tried to be more sensitive to the feelings of victims while guarding against wrongful accusations.
Mika Kobayashi, who heads a support group for sexual assault victims based on her own experience as a victim in 2000, speaks during an interview in Tokyo, Dec. 25, 2017.
She said she was pushed into a car and raped on her way home in 2000. She reported the attack to police, but the attacker hasn’t been found. She has since published books about her recovery from the ordeal, to raise public awareness.
“I used to think of myself as someone hiding a big secret, a sex assault victim and unclean,” she said. “I’m so grateful I could connect with fellow victims. They gave me strength.”
Shiori filed her quasi-rape charges to Tokyo Police Agency in 2015 claiming she was sexually assaulted in a hotel room while she was unconscious. However, Tokyo Prosecutors Office dropped the case due to ‘lack of ground for charges’. In May 29 2017, Shiori held a press conference at the Justice Ministry Press Club and revealed that she had filed a request to the Prosecutors Inquest Committee. However on September 21, the Committee also ruled that the decision of ‘non-prosecution’ was duly appropriate. Since September 28, Shiori is fighting a civil law suit in Tokyo District Court seeking for investigation of the truth.
At the [May] Press Conference, Shiori chose to appear in her first name instead of the typical pseudonym of “Victim A”. In the new book, she has also revealed that her last name is “Ito”. With the aim to foment social discussion on this matter, we will share the Introduction part of her book where she has attempted to reveal everything in her knowledge.
In May 29, 2017, I held a press conference at the Ministry of Justice Press Club. The purpose of the conference was to report on the fact that I have filed a request for inquest to the Prosecutors Inquest Committee due to the fact that the rape case which I was victimized has been dropped by the judgment of the Prosecution.
被害にあってから、実に2年以上の月日が経っていた。
More than two years have passed since I was victimized.
It appeared that most of the people come to know about my case in this press conference for the first time. But I will emphasize that I’ve done this many times over the two years in front of the police, lawyers, and the media.
The word “rape” must make people think that such case only occurs outside, during night time, when the victim is assaulted on the streets, by a complete stranger.
But according to a survey by the [Japan’s] Cabinet Office in 2014, the case of the victim being forced to engage in sex was 11.1 percent. The majority of the [rape or non-consensual sex] case was committed by an acquaintance. However, those who report to the police only accounted for 4.3 percent of the total of which half of them are cases committed by a complete stranger.
It is clear that victims find it harder to go to the police when they are victimized by an acquaintance. And if the victim happens to be unconscious during the assault, then there is a even higher hurdle to overcome to prosecute the case in today’s Japan’s judiciary system.
When you are alive, you can experience many things– things that are completely unexpected, things that you only thought would happen on TV, or things that can only happen to someone who is remote from you.
I pursued the path of a journalist. I studied journalism and photography in an American college and worked as an intern at Reuters after I returned to Japan in 2015. Then there was that incident that almost changed my entire life.
I have been to about sixty countries abroad, and I have interviewed guerrillas in Columbia and reported on the ‘Cocaine Jungles’ in Peru. When I tell anyone about this, they usually say, “I assume you’ve been through many dangerous situations.”
But the fact was that I never was in any danger throughout my career visiting, staying, and reporting in these remote places. A true danger arrived when I was living in one of the most safest country known to the world, and my home, Japan. And what happened after the incident devastated me even more. There was no place where I can depend on for help; not the hospital, not the Rape Hotline, or the police.
自分がこのような社会で何も知らずに生きてきたことに、私は心底驚いた。
I was truly astonished to find that I lived in a society where I knew nothing about what I have experienced back then.
性暴力は、誰にも経験して欲しくない恐怖と痛みを人にもたらす。そしてそれは長い間、その人を苦しめる。
Sexual violence really brings upon great pain and instills fear that no one should ever have to experience. And this fear and pain torments the victimized person for a very long time.
なぜ、私がレイプされたのか？ そこに明確な答えはない。私は何度も自分を責めた。
Why was I raped? There was no clear answer for me. But I blamed myself over and over again.
ただ、これは起こったことなのだ。残念ながら、起こったことは誰にも変えることができない。
But it happened. And the fact that it happened can’t be changed by anyone.
I want to think that this experience of mine wouldn’t end in vain. I learned it myself for the first time through this painful experience. This unimaginable experience, that I didn’t know what to do about it at all when it first happened.
But I know now what needs to be done. And to make this happen, I must tackle to change both the social and legal system surrounding sexual violence at the same time. To do this, first and foremost, I must become a part of a society where victims can openly discuss about their experience, for myself, for my precious sister and my closest friends, my future child, and for the many who are still unknown.
But if I maintained in myself the anger or the shame [against myself and others], I would not be able to change anything. In this book I want to be straightforward, and tell what I think is needed, and what I think needs to be changed.
Shiori Ito told the police she had been raped by Noriyuki Yamaguchi, then the Washington bureau chief for the Tokyo Broadcasting System and a biographer of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Credit Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York Times
TOKYO - It was a spring Friday night when one of Japan’s best-known television journalists invited Shiori Ito out for a drink. Her internship at a news service in Tokyo was ending, and she had inquired about another internship with his network.
They met at a bar in central Tokyo for grilled chicken and beer, then went to dinner. The last thing she remembers, she later told the police, was feeling dizzy and excusing herself to go to the restroom, where she passed out.
The journalist, Noriyuki Yamaguchi, the Washington bureau chief of the Tokyo Broadcasting System at the time and a biographer of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, denied the charge and, after a two-month investigation, prosecutors dropped the case.
Then Ms. Ito decided to do something women in Japan almost never do: She spoke out.
すると伊藤さんは、日本の女性のほぼ誰もがけっして行わないことを実行に移した。声を上げたのである。
In a news conference in May and a book published in October, she said the police had obtained hotel security camera footage that appeared to show Mr. Yamaguchi propping her up, unconscious, as they walked through the hotel lobby. The police also located and interviewed their taxi driver, who confirmed that she had passed out. Investigators told her they were going to arrest Mr. Yamaguchi, she said - but then suddenly backed off.
As the United States reckons with an outpouring of sexual misconduct cases that have shaken Capitol Hill, Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the news media, Ms. Ito’s story is a stark example of how sexual assault remains a subject to be avoided in Japan, where few women report rape to the police and when they do, their complaints rarely result in arrests or prosecution.
On paper, Japan boasts relatively low rates of sexual assault. In a survey conducted by the Cabinet Office of the central government in 2014, one in 15 women reported experiencing rape at some time in their lives, compared with one in five women who report having been raped in the United States.
But scholars say Japanese women are far less likely to describe nonconsensual sex as rape than women in the West. Japan’s rape laws make no mention of consent, date rape is essentially a foreign concept and education about sexual violence is minimal.
Instead, rape is often depicted in manga comics and pornography as an extension of sexual gratification, in a culture in which such material is often an important channel of sex education.
The police and courts tend to define rape narrowly, generally pursuing cases only when there are signs of both physical force and self-defense and discouraging complaints when either the assailant or victim has been drinking.
Last month, prosecutors in Yokohama dropped a case against six university students accused of sexually assaulting another student after forcing her to drink alcohol.
And even when rapists are prosecuted and convicted in Japan, they sometimes serve no prison time; about one in 10 receive only suspended sentences, according to Justice Ministry statistics.
This year, for example, two students at Chiba University near Tokyo convicted in the gang rape of an intoxicated woman were released with suspended sentences, though other defendants were sentenced to prison. Last fall, a Tokyo University student convicted in another group sexual assault was also given a suspended sentence.
“It’s quite recent that activists started to raise the ‘No Means No’ campaign,” said Mari Miura, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. “So I think Japanese men get the benefit from this lack of consciousness about the meaning of consent.”
「活動家たちが「ノーはノー」というキャンペーンを立ち上げたのはごく最近のことです」
東京の上智大学で政治学を教える三浦まり教授はこう語った。
「だから日本の男性は、同意に対する意識が浸透していない現状にあぐらをかけるのだと思います」
Of the women who reported experiencing rape in the Cabinet Office survey, more than two-thirds said they had never told anyone, not even a friend or family member. And barely 4 percent said they had gone to the police. By contrast, in the United States, about a third of rapes are reported to the police, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
“Prejudice against women is deep-rooted and severe, and people don’t consider the damage from sexual crimes seriously at all,” said Tomoe Yatagawa, a lecturer in gender law at Waseda University.
「女性に対する偏見は根深く、深刻です。性犯罪による被害はまったく真剣に受け止められていません」
早稲田大学でジェンダーと法を教える谷田川知恵教授はこう語る。
Ms. Ito, 28, who has filed a civil suit against Mr. Yamaguchi, agreed to discuss her case in detail to highlight the challenges faced by women who suffer sexual violence in Japan.
Mr. Yamaguchi, 51, also agreed to speak for this article. He denied committing rape. “There was no sexual assault,” he said. “There was no criminal activity that night.”
山口氏（５１）も、取材に応じることを承諾した。レイプを行ったことは否定し、次のように語った。
「性的暴行は行われていない。あの夜、犯罪行為は行われなかった」
Photo
A taxi outside the Sheraton Miyako Hotel in Tokyo. The police interviewed a taxi driver who said he had taken Ms. Ito and Mr. Yamaguchi to a hotel, although the woman had asked to be taken to a train station. Credit Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York Times
When she contacted him again in Tokyo, he suggested that he might be able to help her find a job in his bureau, she said. He invited her for drinks and then dinner at Kiichi, a sushi restaurant in the trendy Ebisu neighborhood.
To her surprise, they dined alone, following beer with sake. At some point, she felt dizzy, went to the bathroom, laid her head on the toilet tank and blacked out, she said.
Japanese law describes the crime of “quasi-rape” as sexual intercourse with a woman by “taking advantage of loss of consciousness or inability to resist.” In the United States, the law varies from state to state, with some defining the same crime as second-degree rape or sexual assault.
The police later located a taxi driver who recalled picking up Ms. Ito and Mr. Yamaguchi and taking them to the nearby Sheraton Miyako Hotel, where Mr. Yamaguchi was staying.
The driver said Ms. Ito was conscious at first and asked to be taken to a subway station, according to a transcript of an interview with the driver. Mr. Yamaguchi, however, instructed him to take them to his hotel.
The driver recalled Mr. Yamaguchi saying that they had more work to discuss. He also said Mr. Yamaguchi might have said something like, “I won’t do anything.”
When they pulled up to the hotel, the driver said, Ms. Ito had “gone silent” for about five minutes and he discovered that she had vomited in the back seat.
“The man tried to move her over toward the door, but she did not move,” the driver said, according to the transcript. “So he got off first and put his bags on the ground, and he slid his shoulder under her arm and tried to pull her out of the car. It looked to me like she was unable to walk on her own.”
Ms. Ito also appears incapacitated in hotel security camera footage obtained by the police. In pictures from the footage seen by The New York Times, Mr. Yamaguchi is propping her up as they move through the lobby around 11:20 p.m.
Ms. Ito said it was about 5 a.m. when she woke up. She said she wriggled out from under Mr. Yamaguchi and ran to the bathroom. When she came out, she said, “he tried to push me down to the bed and he’s a man and he was quite strong and he pushed me down and I yelled at him.”
She said she demanded to know what had happened and whether he had used a condom. He told her to calm down, she said, and offered to buy her a morning-after pill.
He said: “She’s not a child. If she could have controlled herself, then nothing would have happened.”
「彼女も子どもではないので、自分をしっかりコントロールさえしていれば、何も起こらなかったでしょう」
Mr. Yamaguchi said he had brought her to his hotel because he was worried that she would not make it home. He had to rush back to his room, he said, to meet a deadline in Washington.
Mr. Yamaguchi acknowledged that “it was inappropriate” to take Ms. Ito to his room but said, “It would have been inappropriate to leave her at the station or in the hotel lobby.”
He declined to describe what happened next, citing the advice of his lawyers. But in court documents filed in response to Ms. Ito’s civil suit, he said he undressed her to clean her up and laid her on one of the beds in his room. Later, he added, she woke and knelt by his bed to apologize.
Mr. Yamaguchi said in the documents that he urged her to return to bed, then sat on her bed and initiated sex. He said she was conscious and did not protest or resist.
In another email, Mr. Yamaguchi denied Ms. Ito’s allegation of rape and suggested that they consult lawyers. “Even if you insist it was quasi-rape, there is not a chance that you can win,” he wrote.
別のメールで山口氏は、レイプの訴えを否定し、互いに弁護士に相談するべきだと提案する。
「あなたが準強姦の主張しても（原文ママ）、あなたが勝つ事はありません」
（参考）伊藤詩織著『Black Box』112-113頁における実際の記載。
When asked about the emails, Mr. Yamaguchi said a full record of his conversations and correspondence with Ms. Ito would demonstrate that he had “had no intention” of using his position to seduce her.
“I am the one who was caused trouble by her,” he added.
「彼女に迷惑をかけられているのは私のほうです」
山口氏はそう付け加えた。
Photo
“I have not done anything illegal,” Mr. Yamaguchi said. “There was no sexual assault. There was no criminal activity that night.” Credit Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York Times
Ms. Ito said she rushed home to wash after leaving the hotel. She now regards that as a mistake. “I should have just gone to the police,” she said.
伊藤さんはホテルを出た後、急いで自宅に帰り体を洗い流したという。
彼女はいま、そのことを後悔している。
「警察に行くべきでした」
Her hesitation is typical. Many Japanese women who have been assaulted “blame themselves, saying, ‘Oh, it’s probably my fault,’” said Tamie Kaino, a professor emeritus of gender studies at Ochanomizu University.
彼女のような「ためらい」は典型的といえる。
「性的暴行の被害に遭った日本女性の多くは『私のせいに違いない』と自分を責めます」
お茶の水女子大学でジェンダー法学を研究する戒能民江名誉教授はこう語る。
Hisako Tanabe, a rape counselor at the Sexual Assault Relief Center in Tokyo, said that even women who call their hotline and are advised to go to the police often refuse, because they do not expect the police to believe them.
“They think they will be told they did something wrong,” she said.
「彼女たちは、自分が間違ったことをしたと指摘されると思っているんです」
Ms. Ito said she felt ashamed and considered keeping quiet too, wondering if tolerating such treatment was necessary to succeed in Japan’s male-dominated media industry. But she decided to go to the police five days after the encounter.
“If I don’t face the truth,” she recalled thinking, “I think I won’t be able to work as a journalist.”
「真実と向き合わなければ、私はジャーナリストとしてやっていけないと思ったんです」
伊藤さんは当時を振り返った。
The police officers she spoke to initially discouraged her from filing a complaint and expressed doubt about her story because she was not crying as she told it, she said. Some added that Mr. Yamaguchi’s status would make it difficult for her to pursue the case, she said.
A two-month investigation followed, after which the lead detective called her in Berlin, where she was working on a freelance project, she said. He told her they were preparing to arrest Mr. Yamaguchi on the strength of the taxi driver’s testimony, the hotel security video and tests that found his DNA on one of her bras.
The detective said Mr. Yamaguchi would be apprehended at the airport on June 8, 2015, after arriving in Tokyo on a flight from Washington, and he asked her to return to Japan to help with questioning, Ms. Ito said.
When that day came, though, the investigator called again. He told her that he was inside the airport but that a superior had just called him and ordered him not to make the arrest, Ms. Ito said.
Ms. Ito declined to identify the investigator, saying she wanted to protect him. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police would not comment on whether plans to arrest Mr. Yamaguchi were scuttled.
“We have conducted a necessary investigation in light of all laws and sent all documents and evidence to the Tokyo Prosecutors’ office,” a spokesman said.
「われわれは法令に基づき必要な調査を行い、すべての文書と証拠を東京地方検察庁に送付しました」
Photo
The Sheraton Miyako Hotel in the Ebisu neighborhood of Tokyo. Credit Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York Times
In 2016, the most recent year for which government statistics are available, the police confirmed 989 cases of rape in Japan, or about 1.5 cases for every 100,000 women. By comparison, there were 114,730 cases of rape in the United States, according to F.B.I. statistics, or about 41 cases per 100,000 residents, both male and female.
Scholars say the disparity is less about actual crime rates than a reflection of underreporting by victims and the attitudes of the police and prosecutors in Japan.
Over the summer, Parliament passed the first changes to Japan’s sex crime laws in 110 years, expanding the definition of rape to include oral and anal sex and including men as potential victims. Lawmakers also lengthened minimum sentences. But the law still does not mention consent, and judges can still suspend sentences.
And despite the recent cases, there is still little education about sexual violence at universities. At Chiba, a course for new students refers to the recent gang rape as an “unfortunate case” and only vaguely urges students not to commit crimes.
The official, Itaru Nakamura, a former aide to Mr. Abe’s chief cabinet secretary, confirmed that investigators were prepared to arrest Mr. Yamaguchi - and that he had stopped them, Mr. Tanaka reported in Shukan Shincho, a weekly newsmagazine.
The allegations did not affect Mr. Yamaguchi’s position at the Tokyo Broadcasting System, but he resigned last year under pressure from the network after publishing an article that was seen as contentious. He continues to work as a freelance journalist in Japan.
Isoko Mochizuki, one of the few journalists to investigate Ms. Ito’s allegations, said she faced resistance from male colleagues in her newsroom, some of whom dismissed the story because Ms. Ito had not gone to the hospital immediately.
A version of this article appears in print on December 30, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: She Reported It. And Her Country Ignored Her.
“I had to do everything I can before getting help from anyone. I was so dejected that I could not get myself out of bed.”
（「なにをするにしても、まず自分で行って、それから初めて助けを求めることができました。あまりにも落胆して、ベッドから抜け出せないこともありました」）
“The police refuse to say why they dismissed the arrest warrant. Everything happens behind closed doors without transparency.”
（「警察はなぜ逮捕状が執行停止になったのか答えようとしません。すべては密室の中で、透明性のない中で進められました」）
“
If what the law says does not matter and the police have such a great
power that they can suppress an arrest warrant without holding anyone
accountable, I wonder what sort of society we live in?
“（「法律にどう書かれているかに関係なく、誰も責任を問われることなく警察が逮捕状を制止できるようならば、私たちの住む社会って一体どういう社会なんでしょうか」）
“The inspector said that I could forget my career after this. But … we cannot keep on being quiet, "says Shiori Ito. （「その警官は私にこう言いました。”この後は誰も雇ってくれなくなるから、ジャーナリストになる道は諦めたほうがいい”と。でも私は黙っていられませんでした」と語る伊藤詩織さん。）
Although
speaking out about abuse and rape is difficult in almost all
circumstances, women living in certain countries face insurmountable
obstacles when seeking justice. Japan is one of those places. Entrenched
cultural norms which don’t even allow the word rape to be mentioned,
have silenced women almost entirely. But one person refused to be quiet -
journalist Shiori Ito. The man in question has publicly denied all
allegations.
I
was raped two years ago in 2015. And the man who raped me, he offered
me a job in Washington DC, because he was bureau chief in one of the
Japanese mainstream TV news station. We made appointment to meet because
we need to talk about working visa.
It
was hard to realize that someone you trust or someone you respect would
do that. So I was scared, because he was quite close to all the
high-profile politicians. So it took time, to me, to think if this is
the right thing to do, if anyone would believe me.
I
decided, okay I’m going to the police, and I knew that this would make
me hard to work in … work as a journalist in Japan to accuse such a
high-profile journalist. And then when I got to the right person to talk
to, he told me, “These things happen a lot, and we can’t investigate.
It would never be prosecuted, it would never be charged, and it’s just a
waste of time.”
So
I thought he would accept, that he would file the case. And then he
told me, “Look, you’re accusing such a high-profile journalist. You have
no chance to be a journalist in Japan. ”
– That’s what the investigator or detective said to you?
―それは、捜査官が言ったのですか？それとも刑事が？
The investigator.
捜査官です。
– And how did that make you feel?
―そう言われて、どのように感じましたか？
It
was quite a tough decision to make, although I had to do it. Because if
I put a lid on the truth that I have, I shouldn’t be a journalist. And
also, I started having more questions, why can’t you investigate?
And
during the investigation, it was hard… Every time investigator has
changed, they asked me if I was a virgin. Why would you ask these
questions so many times? I stopped going for work. Every time I see the
same… similar figure man on a street, I became panicked. So I
decided,“Okay, maybe it’s better for me to go outside of Japan.”
–
So just to go back, so he was still in the United States but there was
an arrest warrant issued for him WHILE he was still in the United
States. Is that right?
Investigators
plan was to wait at the Narita Airport and arrest him as soon as he
gets on land. But then the investigator called me on the day they were
going to arrest, and he said, “There was order from above,” and they
stopped the arrest.
–
Am I right in saying that you are the first person who has publicly
said, openly under her own name, “I was raped. This is my story,” in
this country?
I
was quite disappointed. I felt like everyone knew about me. So I
couldn’t go out anymore. So I was always … I had to disguise myself if
I needed to go somewhere. And I started seeing these websites talking
about my personal life, my family. I saw my family’s photo. So I was
scared if I go out with my family, with my friend, what’s going to
happen to them? I couldn’t leave the house.
I
decided to quit to media I was working for, and be a freelancer and
start working with British media. I had a chance to move to UK this
summer and that made me feel, again, like a person; that I can go out.
Finally
I do feel small small changes. Politicians are now talking about it at
the Diet, at the parliament, and they finally changed the rape law which
hasn’t changed for a 110 years.
As
a journalist I tried many different ways to talk about it through
media, but none of these worked. So in the end, I had to be the ONE who
speak out about it. And certainly, sexual violence could happen anywhere
anytime in the world.
But
I was more shocked by what had happened afterwards, that made me really
hopeless. And I never realized what kind of society that I was living
in. Okay, legal system – it would take time. But social system can
change to support and help. And that would make a major change for
survivors to take the next step. Now, I do see some positive movements,
so I’m very optimistic.
On April 4, 2015, as I regained consciousness in a Tokyo hotel room, I was raped by Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a former Washington, D.C. bureau chief for the Tokyo Broadcasting System and a journalist with close ties to Prime Minister Shinzō Abe.
I met Yamaguchi the night before to discuss work opportunities. My last memory of that evening is feeling dizzy in a sushi restaurant. As I went through the ensuing criminal case proceedings, I came to realize how Japan’s system works to undermine survivors of sexual assault.
When the arrest was canceled, I thought my only recourse was to speak to the media.（
逮捕が執行停止になったとき、私は頼れるのはメディアしかないと思った。）
The investigation was scuttled throughout. This was, I and others suspect, partly due to political pressure, but also because of a medical, investigative, legal and, ultimately, social system that marginalizes and fails victims of sex crimes. I’ve had to fight every step of the way.
I went public to say that the entire mechanism of handling sexual crimes must change, and to ask that the Diet, as our parliament is known, stop delaying the proposed amendments to Japan’s 110-year-old rape law. To say that sexual violence is a reality that we need to talk about.
After fleeing the hotel, as I became aware of the physical pain, I realized what had happened. The gynaecologist I visited provided little assistance. I called the hotline for Tokyo’s only 24-hour rape crisis center to ask which hospital to go to (rape kits are only available in certain hospitals in 14 of Japan’s 47 prefectures). I was told to come in for a preliminary interview before I could receive any information. I was too devastated to move.
Initially, the police officers tried to discourage me from filing a report, saying my career would be ruined and that “this kind of thing happens often, but it’s difficult to investigate these cases.” I persuaded them to obtain the hotel’s security camera footage. The taxi driver’s testimony disclosed that I was carried inside the hotel. Eventually, the police took on my case.
I had to repeat my statement to numerous police officers. One investigator told me that if I didn’t cry, or act like a “victim,” they couldn’t tell if I was telling the truth. At one point, I had to reenact what happened with a life-size dummy at the Takanawa police station while officers took photographs. It was traumatizing and humiliating. A former colleague once referred to this procedure as “second rape” because it forces the victim to relive their ordeal.
In early June 2015, officers at Takanawa police station obtained a warrant for Yamaguchi’s arrest for incapacitated — or what is called “quasi” — rape.
Police planned to arrest him at Narita airport on June 8, but in a highly unusual move, the then chief of criminal investigation at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police canceled the arrest. My case was transferred to that department, where I was asked to settle out of court. Prosecutors filed papers against Yamaguchi, but in July 2016, they dropped all charges, citing insufficient evidence.
When the arrest was canceled, I thought my only recourse was to speak to the media. I spoke to journalists I trusted. No outlet, except weekly news magazine Shukan Shincho earlier this year, ended up reporting this story. The circumstances were politically sensitive, but Japanese media are usually silent about sex crimes — they don’t really “exist.”
It is taboo to even use the word “rape,” which is often replaced by “violated” or “tricked” if the victim was underage. This contributes to public ignorance.
The backlash hit me hard. I was vilified on social media and received hate messages and emails and calls from unknown numbers. I was called a “slut” and “prostitute” and told I should “be dead.” There were arguments over my nationality, because a true Japanese woman wouldn’t speak about such “shameful” things. Fake stories popped up online about my private life with photos of my family. I received messages from women criticizing me for failing to protect myself.
The mainstream media discussed what I wore. On social media, people said leaving the top buttons of my shirt undone undermined my credibility or explained why I was raped. One journalist had advised me to wear a suit to the press conference, but I refused. I was tired of being told how a victim should behave.
After the press conference, I avoided going out. When I did, I wore glasses and a cap to disguise myself, but people still recognized me and took pictures.
Those close to me supported me. I was heartened to hear from women who thanked me and said they’d experienced sexual assault, but felt unable to say anything.
I grew up in a culture and society where women are exposed to sexism and harassment from a young age. When I was 10 years old, I was groped by a man at a Tokyo swimming complex. My friend’s mother said it was my fault for wearing a “cute bikini.” Sexual molestation on public transport is a common problem that society trivializes. In high school, my friends and I faced this on a daily basis.
There is a strong social stigma associated with speaking out against sexual assault and a common perception that victims are less valuable to society. This is why many stay silent. Just 4 percent of survivors report rape to the police and when arrests are made, more than half the time prosecutors drop the charges.
It’s not that victims haven’t come forward; Japanese society wants them to stay silent.（被害者が名乗りを上げないのではない。社会が沈黙を守ることを望んでいるのだ）
When women speak out, their allegations are decried by dominant counter-narratives of “false accusations” or “false reports” in mainstream and social media. Men can even take out insurance against these accusations.
There is little concept of sexual consent in the law or in society. We need education about this in schools because we live in a society where “no” means “yes.” Rape is a genre in pornography. In relationships, some women think mimicking rape is desirable. People I’ve spoken to say they know when “no” means “no.” That’s a very Japanese way of communicating — not saying much but trying to read what the other person is saying.
According to a 2017 poll by NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster, 27 percent of respondents believed that sharing a private drink signaled sexual consent, while 25 percent took getting into the same car as a sign.
Many of the women who have shared their stories with me were assaulted in their workplace by their bosses. Sexual abuse happens whenever there is a power imbalance — which is everywhere in our male-dominated society.
In mid-October, around the time the Harvey Weinstein story broke, my book “Black Box” was published. Editor Izumi Ando had encouraged me to write about my experiences, saying that by going public, I’d cracked the door open.
The book’s title comes from the term prosecutors and police officers used to describe how rape happens behind closed doors. They kept saying: “We still don’t really know what happened; only you two know that sort of thing.”
He has publicly denied my rape allegations and written against me.
山口氏は私のレイプ被害の訴えを公然と否定し、反論を展開した。
Change, slowly
ゆるやかな変化
In the past year in Japan, we’ve made some progress. In July, our lower house of parliament (where just 10.1 percent of seats are held by women) amended the law pertaining to sexual assault to increase minimum sentences from three to five years, recognize male victims and widen the definition of what constitutes rape. But we need to keep pushing for more change. The age of consent is still 13. To establish a case, victims need to prove “violence and intimidation,” something that is virtually impossible.
Japan hasn’t had a big #MeToo movement, but what’s happened in the United States and elsewhere has provided an opening in our media to discuss sexual harassment and assault here, and to raise awareness. Some well-known authors — Mayumi Mori and Kyoko Nakajima, who contributes to Asahi newspaper, for example — have criticized society’s silence and are writing about their own stories of harassment. Journalist Akiko Kobayashi wrote in Buzzfeed about being sexually abused as a child. In private, women’s solidarity groups and others are quietly saying “me too.” But for now, most can only whisper it.
Some MPs are now hoping to introduce a new bill to support survivors that would mandate, for instance, that rape crisis centers are installed in every Japanese prefecture. But for any real change to happen, society needs to get behind it.
We haven’t really had a #MeToo movement not because victims haven’t come forward, but because Japanese society wants them to stay silent. Society needs to listen, and the onus of breaking this silence shouldn’t just come from survivors. We have to change the system and the law in a big way and we can’t wait another 110 years to do this.
Shiori Ito is a freelance journalist, documentary filmmaker and the author of “Black Box” (2017). She is currently working on a documentary about sexual violence in Japan.
As the #MeToo movement spans the globe, spinning a presidential bubble for Oprah Winfrey and putting spotlights on hidden corners of sexism, Japan is conspicuous for a relative silence, particularly where it matters most.
There have indeed been some vital demands for justice at ground level, particularly Shiori Ito. The freelance journalist went public with rape allegations last May, well before the Harvey Weinstein reckoning. Japanese women also have bombarded the Twittersphere with support for the movement, putting their nation in the #MeToo traffic Top 10.
But why the thunderous silence from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet, given a platform that pinned gender equality as a key metric? “Womenomics” is, after all, synonymous with the prime minister’s reform program as Abenomics enters its sixth year. Abe is largely mum on the urgent need to protect, empower and inspire women in the workplace, politics and entertainment. So is Seiko Noda, whom Abe tapped in August to drive better utilization of the female workforce to spur national growth and advance social progress.
“Abe is always grandstanding on womenomics, so here is a chance for him to chalk up a win for women in the workplace,” says Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus. “Until the Diet passes laws with teeth, victims of debasing behavior have no real recourse to regain their dignity and make companies pay for their complicity.”
The trouble is that by one narrow measure ? the number of women entering the labor force ? Abenomics can claim success. The ratio of women between 15 to 64 in the workforce has increased by 1 percentage point or more in each year of Abe’s prime ministership, winning plaudits from the Brookings Institution in Washington. Yet corporate Japan is routing a disproportionate number of women into informal jobs that pay less and enjoy fewer protections. The more important metric: At the same moment last year that female participation hit 66 percent, women accounted for two-thirds of workers on irregular job statuses such as part-timers.
That mirror image is a big stain on Abe’s womenomics spin, one about which the World Economic Forum has no misgivings. In November, just as Abe shared a stage with Ivanka Trump (whose dad stands accused of sexual assault) at Tokyo’s World Assembly for Women, WEF slashed Japan’s gender-empowerment ranking to an all-time low. On Abe’s watch, Japan has gone from 98th place to 114th. Five-plus years into Abenomics, Japan still trails Saudi Arabia in the number of women in politics. Not one Nikkei 225 company is run by Japanese women.
When you ask leading empowerment voices about Japan’s most pressing needs, be they Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook or Kathy Matsui of Goldman Sachs, it’s role models. In top-down Japan, sadly, trailblazers often have to come from inspired governance. Abe, for example, has not entrusted a key Cabinet portfolio to a woman ? foreign affairs, finance or chief Cabinet secretary.
Yuriko Koike surely deserves a shout-out here. Tokyo’s first female governor shocked the patriarchy in 2016 by beating the favored candidate of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, a nondescript 60-something man (of course!). Yet even Koike is treading carefully about getting on the #MeToo bandwagon.
If any developed nation needs a “lean in” moment, in the Sandberg sense, it’s Japan. America, and the West in general, surely has its problems. Facing his own torrent of allegations, President Donald Trump has aggressively avoided #MeToo. How often, though, does the OECD call out a Group of Seven economy for institutionalized sexism, as it has with Japan?
It’s a complex problem, one hard to separate from issues of culture, tradition and social mores. And admittedly, U.S. comparisons are dubious. When Ruth Benedict wrote of Japan’s “shame culture” versus America’s “guilt culture” in “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” she did so in 1946, 58 years before the advent of social media. The ubiquity of online defaming tools explains, in part, why Japan’s #MeToo moment has been a quieter affair.
“You don’t want to bring shame on your family or society by talking about having been the victim of sexual misconduct, so you say nothing,” explains Nancy Snow of Kyoto University of Foreign Studies. “But that silence implies consent and we must create an atmosphere that allows the victim to express that is linked to Japan’s overall betterment as a high-status member of global society.”
Japanese lawmakers need to embrace #MeToo as a human rights problem, one whose solutions would reap broader benefits ? from the quality of leadership to economic innovation. The question, of course, is what might catalyze change? Snow argues it may take a high-profile and well-respected woman ? or a group of women ? to step forward and drive a Japanese movement from the grass-roots on up, creating a cathartic wave of activism.
Abe can help. Along with promoting women to top Cabinet roles, he can urge lawmakers to level playing fields and tighten gender protections. First, though, Mr. Womenomics should use the bully pulpit only a national leader can and cry “Japan too!”
On November 28, Turkey’s Haber 7,Yeni Yasam, and Harwar News (ANHA) - which is close to the Democratic Unity Party (PYD), a Syrian Kurdish nationalist organization - all reported that Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency had removed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from “List of Global Terrorist and Armed Organizations” section on its official website.
