When the government unveiled a three-year plan to enhance measures against sex crimes and sexual violence last month, childhood abuse survivor Jun Yamamoto found the announcement uncharacteristically human and reassuring.
She felt that Seiko Hashimoto, minister in charge of gender equality, had gone out of her way to acknowledge the so-called Flower Demo — a monthly demonstration held by sexual violence survivors that has evolved into a nationwide movement over the past year — in her statement detailing the new policy.
The Flower Demo, the minister said, had underlined “growing public calls for the eradication of sexual crimes and violence,” piling pressure on the government to “respond to their desperate voices head-on, and hammer out concrete policies to eliminate the insanity that is sexual violence.”