JAPAN: CHILD SEX TOURISM UPDATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TOKYO 002458 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP: CHRIS CHAN-DOWNER E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/26/2019 TAGS: KTIP PHUM JA SUBJECT: JAPAN: CHILD SEX TOURISM UPDATE TOKYO 00002458 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: POL M/C Robert Luke per 1.4 (b, d) ¶1. (C) Atsushi Maeda, Chief Prosecutor at the Ministry of Justice for TIP-related issues provided Embassy Political Officer with information regarding Japan's prosecution of child sex tourists. Maeda said that the Japanese laws --the "Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography" and the "Protection of Children Act"-- provide for extraterritoriality in dealing with child sex tourism by Japanese nationals and were enacted in 1999. Between 1999 and the end of 2008, a total of six Japanese nationals have been prosecuted and convicted for crimes committed in Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines. On a year-by-year basis the figures are: 2002 (1),2003 (1), 2004 (1),2005 (2),2007 (1). Asked to comment on the apparently low level of prosecutions and convictions Maeda stated, "The NPA posts liaison officers at embassies in these countries to assist us, but some Japanese are prosecuted in the countries in which they commit the act. Japanese prosecutors, because of the heavy case load and other pressures tend to only prosecute cases they are reasonably sure of getting a conviction on." ¶2. (C) Japanese press reports confirm that some Japanese are being charged under local laws. On September 15, a Cambodian court charged a 40-year-old Japanese man with purchasing sex from a 15-year-old Cambodian girl he met at a sex-worker rehabilitation center. Possible sentences range from 7 to 15 years in prison. In July a Japanese man was convicted by the same court of taking nude photos of Cambodian children and sentenced to six years. Machiko Kaida, Director of the Japan International Center of the Rights of the Child (JICRC),a Japanese NGO active in Cambodia and devoted to international children's rights issues told Embassy Tokyo, "It is difficult to estimate the size of the child sex tourism problem in Cambodia now, including the use of Cambodian children to make child pornography, but we feel that it is not a small number of children who are victimized in this way." She speculated that the Cambodian government is trying to appear as if it is actively fighting this problem, but in fact, in many cases that do appear in Cambodian courts, the penalties and/or fines levied turn out to be small. (NOTE The Cambodian government established a joint police/justice working group in September to address the issue of judicial consistency in charging and sentencing cases. End Note.) ¶3. (C) Kunihiko Kabe, Country Representative of the "Kamonohashi Project," another Japanese NGO active in anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution projects in Cambodia, shared his observations on this issue. "There is no doubt," he said, "that the U.S. TIP report has had a big effect." It has caused the Cambodian government to make efforts to appear proactive, he said, and as a result the most visible child prostitution has either been eliminated or moved further underground. Kabe said that Cambodian authorities tended "to be soft" on Japanese nationals because of the large levels of ODA to the country. Moreover, he added, "poverty and corruption make it easy to pay a little to either be released or not to be arrested in the first place." Finally he added, that he did not think the efforts of the Japanese Embassy in Cambodia to fight this problem were all that aggressive. ¶4. (C) According to Mark Capaldi, Deputy Director for Programs, ECPAT/International, there are a very low number of Japanese arrested for child sex tourism in destination countries such as Thailand. He stated that based on research, studies, and information exchanges with colleagues and partners, "there appears to be a clear flow of Japanese travelers to a number of Southeast Asian countries who avail themselves of services of the local commercial sex industry, and this includes criminal sexual contact with minors." ¶5. (C) Capaldi stated that the numbers of arrests of non-Japanese sex tourists are not large, quoting a figure of about 20 arrests of mostly Westerners in the last two years. What seems crucial, he added is that, "Most of the arrests have materialized as a result of international collaboration between law enforcement agencies, in particular (over the TOKYO 00002458 002.2 OF 002 last 12 months) due to the intervention and pressure of the British, Swedish, and Australian police agencies that have lead the final stages of investigations in the country alongside the Royal Thai Police." Failing this type of outside intervention, he said that arrests become a lot more sporadic, and the judicial follow-up is often very erratic. ¶6. (C) Capaldi concluded by saying another basic factor often observed by researchers in the field is the fact that Japanese sex tourists are often less conspicuous than Westerners. They often keep a lower profile by patronizing establishments that do not cater to Westerners. It is also sometimes more difficult to spot a child sexual abuse situation when a Japanese or other Asian is involved, as "many may presume the adult is the child's parent or guardian." ¶7. (U) This message was coordinated with Embassies Bangkok and Phnom Penh. ROOS