In the #MeToo era, it's high time for Japan to change its archaic and sexist approach to sexual

[niyad]

Japan's not-so-secret shame

In the #MeToo era, it's high time for Japan to change its archaic and sexist approach to sexual assault.


Shiori Ito, a journalist, who says was raped by an colleague in 2015, talks about her ordeal and the need for more support for the victims in Japan, during an interview in Tokyo [Mari Yamaguchi/AP]




Mika Kobayashi was on her way home one day when men forced her into a van and raped her. She went public about the sexual assault eight years later, in 2008, in a book that chronicled the incident, and the nightmare that followed. Catherine Jane Fisher, an Australian, was raped in Japan in 2002 by a member of the US military. Dismayed by the police handling of the case, which she said made her feel like a criminal, Fisher took matters into her own hands by filing a lawsuit against the rapist and going public about what happened to her.

These are two brave women who broke Japan's silence on rape. More recently, another woman, 28-year-old Shiori Ito, did the same. "Japan's Secret Shame", a documentary aired last month by the BBC, focuses on Ito's allegation that an acquaintance raped her in 2015. Although Kobayashi, Fisher and Ito's experiences span 15 years, their stories are alarmingly similar. All three describe abusive police investigation techniques, failure to take sexual violence seriously, lack of support for victims, and at times, society's unwillingness to understand their pain.

Sexual assault in Japan: 'Every girl was a victim'
A particularly horrifying detail is that Japanese police, as part of their investigation, sometimes force victims to reenact the assault with a life-size doll, while being observed and questioned by officers. This "investigation technique" is abusive, unnecessary, and retraumatising for victims. Over 95 percent of incidents of sexual violence in Japan are not reported to the police according to government figures, and for good reason. Discussing rape is perceived as "embarrassing" in Japan and public opinion often sways towards blaming the victim rather than the attacker.

Until last year's legal reforms, Japanese law defined rape solely as involving violent penetration of a woman's vagina by a man's penis. This prevented many female rape victims and all men and boys who had been raped from seeking justice. In 2017, Japan's parliament passed reforms to the rape law, expanding the definition to include forced oral and anal penetration, lengthening sentences, and permitting prosecutions to move forward without the victim's consent. These were positive steps, but major problems remain, both with the law and with how it is carried out. The Japanese government shouldn't wait for victims to come forth demanding change, but should move ahead now to reform what is still, despite the recent improvements, a hopelessly antiquated - and sexist - system for dealing with sexual violence. The law still permits rape charges to be raised only when "violence or intimidation" was used, except in cases of guardians abusing children. This requirement ignores the fact that rape often occurs without the use of obvious force or threat - for example, when someone is too afraid or shocked to resist, is incapacitated due to drugs or alcohol, or there is a lopsided power dynamic. Requiring proof of "violence or intimidation" excludes many cases that should be treated as rape and forces prosecutors to prove an element that should not be required and is more difficult to prove than lack of consent.

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https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/japan-secret-shame-180726113617684.html

[unblock]

1. ooh that title got cut off at an unfortunate point....

[Nitram]

3. My experience teaching in Japan and discussing current event topics such as rape was

Last edited Wed Aug 15, 2018, 02:21 PM - Edit history (1)

interesting. I met several women during my 20 years in japan who told me they had been raped but had never reported it because of the shame and because police would try to make it look like it was her fault for the way she was dressed or whatever. When my students discussed an article about rape in the the US and the problem of under-reporting, they insisted that rape was not a problem in Japan. Sort of the way the average white person looks at racism in the US until quite recently.

[niyad]

4. and, sadly, that attitude about rape still exists here as well.

thank you so much for sharing your first-hand experience there with us.