The Los Angeles Times article "Enough already: decriminalize prostitution," which The Japan Times printed March 20, prompted me to write. My mother was born during the Meiji Era in a poor fishing village near Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. I remember what she said: In those days the only work for women was prostitution if the family was poor. Her friends were sold into prostitution. She was not educated but she seemed to know about human rights. She used to tell us that operating a brothel was the worst kind of work!
In Showa 32 (1957) in Japan, prostitution became illegal thanks to Diet woman Fusae Ichikawa and her colleagues. Of course, even after this law took effect, the oldest profession never died, because it is deeply connected with human physical instinct. Before Japan's defeat in 1945, Japan had a very bad reputation concerning atrocities, including rape in China, Korea and the Southeast Asian countries that Japan occupied.
For some women, prostitution is easier than ordinary work for making a living, but I cannot understand what the anthropologist featured in the article, who perhaps has Christian ethics, was doing in a Christian country (Mexico) studying the merits of decriminalizing the oldest profession. I do hope Japan does not permit it legally, however impossible it may be for police to arrest most violators. Buddhism is more "lenient" about this than Christianity, though.
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