Eight mothers in their 20s and 30s have been arrested for allegedly distributing and selling pornographic images of their daughters, Miyagi police said.
The mothers are among 12 people the Miyagi Prefectural Police have arrested or notified prosecutors about for possible indictment. They were rounded up in eight prefectures between June and mid-December.
The daughters are between 1 and 12 years old.
The cases came to light after one of the mothers told police she had sent pornographic photos of her daughter to a man she had become acquainted with through a mobile phone site, but he had not come through with the payment.
The police traced e-mail records on her cell phone, leading to the 12 people, including the older sister of one of the girls. The mothers sent the images to men with whom they had become acquainted through dating and other online sites.
Some of the mothers let men take pictures of their daughters and received tens of thousands of yen per session, the police said. One mother made a total of ¥3 million for 60 photography sessions over a 10-year span.
Two of the mothers were also arrested for offering their daughters for sex to a 46-year-old man.
The Miyagi police, working in a joint task force with Tokyo police, have confiscated more than 10,000 images of girls and are trying to identify all of the victims.