Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09TOKYO2780
2009-12-06 23:13:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Tokyo
Cable title:  

RESULTS OF A RECENT CONFERENCE ON COMBATING

Tags:  KTIP KWMN PHUM JA 
pdf how-to read a cable
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TOKYO 002780 

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP: CHRIS CHAN-DOWNER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/03/2019
TAGS: KTIP KWMN PHUM JA
SUBJECT: RESULTS OF A RECENT CONFERENCE ON COMBATING
COMMERCIAL AND SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN IN S.E. ASIA

REF: TOKYO 2458

TOKYO 00002780 001.4 OF 003


Classified By: DCM James P. Zumwalt per reasons 1.4 (b, d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TOKYO 002780

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP: CHRIS CHAN-DOWNER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/03/2019
TAGS: KTIP KWMN PHUM JA
SUBJECT: RESULTS OF A RECENT CONFERENCE ON COMBATING
COMMERCIAL AND SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN IN S.E. ASIA

REF: TOKYO 2458

TOKYO 00002780 001.4 OF 003


Classified By: DCM James P. Zumwalt per reasons 1.4 (b, d)


1. (U) SUMMARY: According to a recent conference held in
Tokyo, despite strong efforts by the Government of Japan to
improve law enforcement cooperation between Japan and its
major source countries, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia
and Cambodia -efforts which have resulted in good working
relations for identifying TIP victims- the commercial sexual
exploitation of children remains a problem in S. E. Asia.
Although tourists from Japan, China, and Korea now rank as
the largest source countries for tourists to the region,
arrests of citizens from Korea and China for child sex
tourism are non-existent, and only a small number of Japanese
have been arrested. The pornography and child pornography
industries, which are closely linked to child sex tourism,
also continue to exhibit robust growth. The pervasive use of
internet-mediated sex worker-client, and child-sexual
exploiter meeting methods (including "virtual" sex),
complicates law-enforcement efforts and betokens an
aggressive, worldwide new face to this phenomena. END SUMMARY.

THE 8TH SEMINAR
--------------


2. (U) As part of Japanese government efforts to be the
leader in Asia in anti-TIP efforts, the National Police
Agency (NPA) hosted "The 8th Seminar on Combating the
Commercial and Sexual Exploitation of Children in Southeast
Asia" on November 25 and 26. Day one featured presentations
by police investigators from Japan, Thailand, the
Philippines, Indonesia, and Cambodia on the current state of
affairs. IOM (International Organization of Migration)
outlined the role it is playing in helping to identify and
reintegrate victims in the region. Carmen Madrinan, Executive
Director of ECPAT (End Child Prostitution Child Pornography
and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes),analyzed
the changing face of the problem and the problem of
under-identification. Day two was devoted to working-level
seminars between police investigators in the region. As
Makoto Kinugasa, Chief of the NPA's (National Police Agency)
Juvenile Protection Office put it, "By establishing personal

relationships with the officers in the region it has made it
much easier for us reach out to each other and cooperate."
On the Japanese side, police officers from all of Japan's 43
prefectures were in attendance.

JAPAN'S NEW ANTI-CHILD PORN PROGRAM
--------------


3. (C) Asked to comment on media reports that the NPA had set
up a special unit to combat child pornography on the Internet
(consisting of five officers with experience in high-tech
crimes and foreign language ability),Kinugasa said "this is
part of a 'Strategic Program to Combat Child Pornography'"
that went into effect in June 2009. The program has three
areas of focus: investigation, prevention of the circulation
of child pornography (including raising awareness),and
assistance for child victims. The NPA has already started an
Internet Hotline Center to report illegal imagery, and an
Anonymous Reporting System for Protecting Children and Women.
This latter system was put in place to facilitate reporting
on the criminal exploitation of juveniles, and trafficking in
persons, crimes that are unlikely to be reported by the
victims themselves and which often tend to go unnoticed.


4. (C) Asked about the new Japanese administration's plans
for introducing a bill to criminalize the simple possession
of child pornography, Masahiro Nakagawa, Professor at the

TOKYO 00002780 002.6 OF 003


National Police University said, "It doesn't appear to
criminalize simple possession per se, rather it criminalizes
downloading these images with the 'intent to possess.' From
the law enforcement point of view this isn't ideal, but we
think the law will still be useful." Nakagawa added that the
NPA's Strategic Program and the new special unit were created
partially in anticipation of a new anti-child porn law being
passed.

JAPAN'S FOUR LAWS: STATISTICS
--------------


5. (U) Japan at present uses four laws to prosecute people
suspected of being involved in the commercial sexual
exploitation of children. These are: the Prostitution
Prevention Act; the Child Welfare Act; the Act on Punishment
of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child
Pornography, and the Protection of Children, and; the Youth
Protection Ordinance. From 2000 through 2008 there has been
a gradual increase in the total number of arrests under these
four laws: from 4,518 in 2000, to 5,318 in 2008. Similarly,
there has been an increase in the number of child victims
identified under these four laws: from 3,749 in 2000, to
5,019 in 2008. Arrests related to child prostitution showed
an interesting trend: starting at 985 in 2000, they peaked at
1,902 in 2002, and have steadily declined since to reach
1,056 in 2008. This decline corresponds with a decreased use
of "telephone club" businesses and an increased use of
on-line dating sites, and social networking sites as the
medium of contact.


6. (C) Over the same period, the number of arrests for child
pornography in Japan has increased from 170 in 2000, to 676
in 2008. The number of child pornography victims identified
over this period rose from 123 in 2000, to 351 in 2008 with
436 reported in the first six months of 2009. This is
against a background of a Japanese pornographic DVD market
that has increased in scale from 1,820,000,000 yen
(21,105,800 USD) in 2003, to 77,100,000,000 yen (893,946,124
USD) in 2008. The Japanese 'manga" (comic) market for 2007
was estimated to have reached the 3.6 billion USD level.
(Note: Estimates are that some 30 to 40% of manga content is
of a sexual nature, much of it involving school girls and
children in sado-masochistic and/or rape scenarios. Experts
report Japanese child-porn sites are also easily found on the
Internet. End Note)

FEW ARRESTS FOR CHILD SEX TOURISM IN S.E. ASIA
-------------- -


7. (C) Director Madrinan in her presentation pointed to the
fact that 5 out of 10 ASEAN countries were popular
destinations for child sex tourism (CST). Of concern however
is the fact that although Japan, China, and Korea rank NO.1,
NO.2, and NO.3 respectively in numbers of tourists traveling to
this region, there have been virtually no arrests of
nationals from these countries. (Note: Between 1998 and 2008
a total of six Japanese have been arrested for CST. End Note)
Asked on the margins of the seminar to explain this
phenomena Madrinan said, "Asian child sex tourists appear to
be more discrete. They patronize Japanese-only, or
Chinese-only exclusive 'clubs.' Moreover, an Asian man with
an Asian child does not stand out so easily." Madrinan said
she also agreed with the observations of the Thai police that
"when arrests are made, they inevitably find video-taping
equipment also."

A NEW TYPE OF GLOBAL CHILD PROSTITUTION PHENOMENA
-------------- ---


TOKYO 00002780 003.4 OF 003



8. (C) Director Madrinan also outlined the ways in which the
global phenomena of child prostitution is changing. The main
features are: vulnerable children provide information that
makes contact possible; there is no middleman or pimp
involved and often no overt evidence of poverty; the
exploiters access and groom children via mobile phones and
the internet; exchanges include prized commodities and not
just money. She listed the vulnerability factors as:
pressures of consumerism; media influence; social and peer
pressure; sexualization of children; lack of communication
with the adult world; loneliness and feelings of inadequacy;
exposure to child pornography. On the margins of the seminar
Director Madrinan said, "Japan has created a context and
environment that makes it easy to domestically traffic women.
The Japanese are under-identifying their trafficking problem
because they are misidentifying the real context." Madrinan
added that this new internet-based child prostitution
phenomena was in fact a worldwide phenomena, and pointed to
that fact the cases she cited in her presentation were from
the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, and Portugal.


9. (C) COMMENT. Japan is making major efforts to address its
TIP problem. It is in fact the leader amongst Asian
countries in terms of establishing working-level police
cooperation, providing funding for anti-TIP grassroots and
institutional-level programs in source countries, and setting
up bilateral and regional MoUs for identifying, protecting,
and rehabilitating TIP victims. The NPA in particular has
also recognized that what is essentially domestic trafficking
is also occurring. To combat this and protect young Japanese
women and children it has started a strategic program to
combat child pornography, including a special Internet child
porn unit. Statistics on arrests using the four laws which
Japanese employ in this area show sophistication on the part
of the NPA for tracking the new and expanding Internet-based
solicitation phenomena.


10. (C) Although Japan has been criticized for the declining
number of foreign TIP victims identified annually (from a
peak in 2005),when the number of arrests, and domestic
(trafficking) victims identified are taken into consideration
two conclusions emerge: 1) Japan is probably having some
success in its anti-TIP efforts in so far as foreign victims
are concerned, and this fact (coupled perhaps with a
declining Japanese economy) has increased the number of
domestic trafficking cases, (as Japanese NGOs have also
reported); 2) the apparent decrease in identified TIP victims
may be an artifact of the reporting: although the number
victims identified under anti-TIP laws has been decreasing,
as the GOJ has often said, the number of victims identified
using all of the above-mentioned laws, has in fact been
increasing. The low number of arrests for child sex tourism
of Japanese nationals is certainly an issue of concern, but
at least some arrests have been made, while there are no
arrests of citizens from that of the other main sources of
tourism to S. E. Asia, including Korea (which enjoys a Tier 1
ranking in the TIP Report). END COMMENT.
ROOS