OSAKA –

Voices have been raised in Japan demanding countermeasures against molestation, which shows no sign of disappearing.

In June, Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department arrested a man in his 30s on suspicion of groping a female high school student on a Tokyo Metro train running in the capital's Koto Ward.

The man had groped the student two or three times a week for some 10 months since August 2024. Although she got on different trains or changed the time she rode them, the man followed her persistently.

The student thought she would have to endure the groping as it continued even if she changed trains. However, she finally bucked up her courage to complain to the police, and the man was arrested two days later.

The number of molestation cases detected by the MPD reached 606 between January and June. Trains accounted for 70% of the crime scenes, while 30% of the victims were 10 to 19 years old.

Still, many victims are believed to be reluctant to report incidents to police or related organizations. According to a survey of some 2,300 people between the ages of 16 and 29 conducted by the Cabinet Office last year, about 80% of respondents said they did not want to report, and 40% of them said they did not want their problems to be known by many people.

"People who are quiet and seem unlikely to resist tend to be targeted," said Yayoi Matsunaga, 60, who heads Chikan Yokushi Katsudo Center, an organization in the city of Osaka, that works to combat molestation.

"These people tend to be repeatedly victimized, and many of them can't report what happened to them," Matsunaga said. "So, we need measures to make molesters hesitate."

According to Matsunaga, many women do not see it as molestation if only their skirts are touched. They realize that they have been victimized after molestation escalates, such as perpetrators putting their hands in their underwear.

"It's also important to teach people from their childhood what molestation is," Matsunaga said.

As part of molestation prevention efforts, the group is promoting badges with words, such as "I won't keep silent." Some users of the badges told the group that they have not been groped since they started displaying the badges.

Takako Tonooka (a pseudonym), 27, who developed the tin badges 10 years ago to deter molesters, is continuing her efforts to eradicate groping from society.

For Tonooka, the journey of "not creating any more perpetrators and victims" started in April 2014, when she first encountered a molester on a train while on her way to high school. "I was so terrified that I couldn't say or do anything," she recalled.

Although she tried out different things to avoid being molested, such as riding different trains and train cars, and going to school with male friends, she still fell victim to groping.

In April 2015, she caught a molester herself for the first time. When she took the offender to the police, she realized that catching the culprit was not her ultimate goal and that she just did not want to fall victim to molestation.

Together with her mother, she created a card reading, "Molestation is a crime. I won't give in." After she started to commute with the card attached to her school bag in a prominent place, she was no longer groped.

Posting about her homemade molestation deterrence card on social media, Tonooka was then contacted by her mother's childhood friend, who was also a victim of molestation.

Tonooka and Matsunaga talked and decided to create through a crowdfunding project tin badges firmly saying no to molestation.

Chikan Yokushi Katsudo Center was set up in January 2016 to help spread the badge initiative.

So far, the organization has handed out about 30,000 tin badges. The badges were initially distributed for a fee, but became free in 2022 thanks to widespread support for the project.

People will be able to receive the badges after they register for membership on the organization's website.

Students at an all-girls school who received the badges have said that they are no longer victims of molestation, and that they can now ride trains without worries.

Badge designs are decided through a competition held every year covering students. Design applications in this year's contest will be accepted until Sept. 10.

A male applicant said that he wanted to do something after someone dear to him was molested.

Tonooka, who is also a judge of the contest, says the driving force behind her efforts is "a sense of mission to prevent people from becoming victims (to molestation)."

With 10 years having passed since the contest was launched in 2015, the organization now receives hundreds of badge design applications every year.

"If more people come to think that the molestation issue is something that they need to tackle, this would lead to no more perpetrators," Tonooka said.

"I hope the competition will serve as an opportunity (to bring such developments)," she said.