Amsterdam to clean up sex-and-drugs tourism in post-virus reboot
As the coronavirus pandemic raged in March and April, the 500-year-old Amsterdam city-center became a ghost town: The scantily clad sex workers in brothel windows in small alleys like Stoofsteeg in the red-light district were gone, as were the hordes of tourists who come ...
COVID-19 outbreak raises uncomfortable questions about Japan's adult entertainment industry
If a certain class of people is excluded from initiatives to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, those people will cause the disease to spread to all classes, regardless of other measures in place.
Stay-home request over virus hits girls in Japan with no place to go
The spread of the novel coronavirus and a government request that the public refrain from going outside has added to the predicament of many teenage girls in Japan who have left home due to abuse, poverty or other reasons. "We see fewer girls in town, ...
A shutdown to contain the coronavirus has killed Thailand's party scene and forced sex workers like Pim out of bars and onto desolate streets. She's scared but desperately needs customers to pay her rent. Red-light districts from Bangkok to Pattaya have gone quiet with night ...
Concern as Japan’s sex workers excluded from freelancer virus payouts
Advocates for bar hostesses and sex workers have urged the government to reconsider its exclusion of them from compensation for parents unable to work because of school closures, noting they are among the most vulnerable members of society. A support group for such workers submitted ...
Nearly all Vietnamese minors at Dutch asylum centers were trafficked out, official says
Almost all the Vietnamese children who arrived in Dutch asylum centers in recent years disappeared and were probably trafficked, the Dutch government adviser on human trafficking has said. Eighty unaccompanied minors from Vietnam went missing from government asylum centers in the Netherlands between 2015 and ...
Niigata principal and another man arrested for allegedly paying for sex with teenage boy
Two men including a 58-year-old principal of an elementary school have been arrested for allegedly paying for sex with a high school boy in March, police said Wednesday. Koichi Miyajima, the principal of an elementary school in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture, and Katsuhiro Kohashi, a 37-year-old ...
Japan eyes stronger law to protect women from sexual exploitation
The welfare ministry is considering crafting a new law to strengthen the protection of women, including schoolgirls, from sexual exploitation, according to sources. The law would provide the legal basis for prefectural consulting centers for women, a role currently played by a law that deals ...
Top K-pop producer Yang Hyun-suk questioned by police over gambling and prostitution
The music producer behind some of South Korea's biggest K-pop stars was questioned by police on Thursday in connection with an investigation into illegal gambling and prostitution that has rocked the music industry. According to police investigators, a network of pop stars, businessmen and police ...
Kyoto court hands man suspended sentence for forcing women into sex trade to clear 'debts'
On Tuesday, a court sentenced a 30-year-old man to 2½ years in prison, suspended for four years, for pushing women into the sex trade to pay off "debts." The Kyoto District Court found Yutaro Ogawa, founder and leader of the group responsible, guilty of forcing ...
Mexico City to decriminalize sex work and aim to cut trafficking
Mexico City lawmakers have given the green light to decriminalize sex work in the capital, hoping it will be a first step to a crackdown on sex trafficking that traps thousands of Mexican women and children. Lawmakers in Mexico City's Congress on Friday voted 38-0, ...
Number of human trafficking victims rescued in 2018 fell to 27, most of them Japanese
Twenty-seven people were rescued from human trafficking in Japan in 2018, of whom two-thirds were Japanese, with the figure falling from 46 the previous year, a government report showed Friday. Eighteen of the victims were Japanese, while five were Filipinos and four were Thais. Only ...
