Japan vice club victim tells of being tricked into sex work in Macau: ‘it’s a trap’

Yu is nervous. She tugs at her hair constantly and adjusts her mask to cover as much of her face as possible. As she displays dozens of credit cards bound with elastic bands and photocopies of bar bills showing eye-watering amounts, her movements are twitchy.

And Yu, who did not want to give her real name, has good reason to be fearful; she is in the neon-lit streets of Tokyo’s Kabukicho nightlife district, a couple of hundred metres from a host club where she still owes a quick-talking host 15 million yen (US$100,000), with yakuza members who control much of the city’s vice “industry” never far away.

While Yu is trying to turn her life around, many other young women in Kabukicho face similarly dire situations, trapped in a cycle of debt and exploitation that has largely been ignored by the authorities and society.

Yu was interviewed for this article in the offices of the Liaison Council Parents Protecting Youths (Seiboren), the organisation she had turned to for help. Directly outside a ground-floor cafe where young women are given hot drinks and receive advice from Seiboren’s counsellors is Okubo Park. As the sun goes down, girls in short skirts who appear to be little more than teenagers lean on the park’s railings, waiting to be approached by potential customers.

For Yu, the spiral began on January 6, 2022, when she first entered one of the most famous host clubs in Kabukicho.

Charmed by the host, she went three times within a week, arriving when the club opened at 6.30pm and staying until it closed at 1am. Her chosen host talked her into splashing out 100,000 yen (US$667) on a bottle of champagne, which he claimed he was getting for half price, and she went on a dohan, or customer, date with him to a karaoke bar.

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