Police have turned over to prosecutors a case of a brothel manager suspected of employing a 13-year-old junior high school girl as a prostitute in Kobe, sources said.
Chikara Kamimura, 44, already indicted for violating the prostitution prevention law, was quoted by the police as saying, "I didn't know she was younger than 18." The girl was quoted as saying, "I wanted money to play around."
Kamimura was suspected of employing the girl at his "soapland" establishment in the Fukuhara red-light district in Hyogo Ward, Kobe, for about a week last May. When she applied for the job she allegedly used a driver's license belonging to a female acquaintance in her 20s, the sources said.