Japan is moving closer to changing its anti-prostitution law so that customers can actually get punished, not just the people selling sex.
Right now the law is pretty one-sided. Soliciting is only illegal for the seller. Buyers walk away free as long as the person is over the age of consent. That imbalance has been criticized for years — women get arrested (often with a lot of media attention) while the men who pay them face zero legal consequences.
On August 24 the Ministry of Justice presented a draft report to an expert panel. The proposal would expand the offense of solicitation to include the buyer and also raise the maximum fine. They want to finalize the report in September and could submit an amendment bill to the Diet as early as this autumn.
The push comes after years of media focus on young streetwalkers around Okubo Park near Kabukicho, which turned into a kind of tourist spectacle thanks to social media videos. There have also been crackdowns on soaplands and other venues in Tokyo and other cities.
If paying for sex becomes illegal, it would hit a huge industry hard. The big question is how far the law would reach. Would it cover call services, brick-and-mortar places, papakatsu, and compensated dating? And what happens to the long-standing legal gray area where places claim they only offer non-penetrative services?
It’s still at the draft stage, but the direction is clear: Japan is seriously looking at making the customer side of the transaction a crime for the first time.