Prostitution : le Japon envisage la pénalisation des clients
Japan took a first step on Thursday towards criminalizing clients of prostitutes, with a group of experts proposing to revise legislation adopted 70 years ago, often accused of stigmatizing only women.
Prostitutes currently face fines or prison sentences for soliciting, but Japanese law does not target their clients, an exception among industrialized countries.
A panel of legal experts recommended that clients should also be penalized for soliciting sexual services, both on the street and on the internet.
According to its final report, which will serve as the basis for legislative reform, acts such as negotiating paid sexual relations in public spaces or "seeking" prostitutes in the street should become punishable.
For Nao – a pseudonym – aged 25, this change came late. A victim of violence at the hands of her mother, she ran away at 14 and lived under a bridge. To "survive day to day," she turned to street prostitution.
"In the morning, men, often middle-aged, on their way to work, would approach me asking if 5,000 yen (28 euros at the current rate, editor's note) would do the trick," this survivor of the sex industry, who is active in the Toka ("Light") group, told AFP.
"At the time, I needed to believe that something gave value to my life. But today, I know that I was a victim of sexual exploitation," she said.
Adopted in 1956, the anti-prostitution law was based on the idea that prostitutes constituted an "evil" by seducing married men, feminist lawyer Yukiko Tsunoda recently argued.
Some activists wanted the adoption of the "Nordic model", which only penalizes buyers of sexual services, as in Sweden, Norway or France.
But the panel stopped short. It did not propose the complete decriminalization of prostitution. According to its report, some women enter the profession "voluntarily," and their soliciting disturbs public order.
For Risa, 37, another member of Toka, maintaining sanctions against prostitutes risks preventing them from reporting the violence they suffer to the authorities, for fear of being treated as criminals.
She also disputes the idea of free choice, pointing out that poverty, trauma or disability often weigh on people's paths.
"I wonder how many people would still choose this life if they had access to education, employment or psychological care," she says.
Experts are divided on the effectiveness of penalizing clients. Criminologist Ronald Weitzer believes it risks pushing prostitution further into less monitored areas or closed venues.
AFP
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Moralité: si les lois visaient vraiment le bonheur humain, et vraiment une vie en harmonie dans la société, toutes les lois et constitutions du monde vont devenir des lois religieuses sans même qu'on s'en rende compte.
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