A former member of the Japanese talent agency previously known as Johnny & Associates, which is embroiled in a sexual assault scandal, called for measures to protect victims from slander and harassment at a United Nations panel meeting Wednesday.
"Victims that report their abuses are subject to constant slander and harassment," the ex-member, Akimasa Nihongi, said in a video message shown at the meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva. "Measures must be taken to end the slander and harassment of victims."
Nihongi spoke about his experience as a victim of sexual assault by Johnny Kitagawa, the late founder of the talent agency, which has been renamed Smile-Up.