Japan's Foreign Ministry has protested remarks by a U.N. official who said 13 percent of schoolgirls in Japan are engaged in enjo kosai, or compensated dating, and called for the comment to be retracted.
The ministry lodged the protest with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding comments by Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, special rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, during her visit to Japan late last month. (She wanted lolis banned.)
It is "unacceptable" that the envoy cited "unreliable information" without a source, the ministry revealed in a statement on Monday (Nov 10). The ministry said it has asked the U.N. office to disclose the basis for the “13 percent” claim, but De Boer-Buquicchio’s side has not clearly explained where the figure came from.
"Some 13 per cent of the school girls in Japan are involved in that kind of activity, which perhaps starts with a relatively innocent activity" such as men going for a walk with high-school girls," she had said.
In "enjo kosai", which emerged in the 1990s, older men pay teenage girls for dates that can involve sex, while the expression "JK" - a Japanese-language abbreviation for high-school girls - refers to more organised and systematic operations in which girls can give massages, lie down next to men or go with them for a stroll.
The US State Department last year said in a report that "enjo kosai… continues to facilitate the prostitution of Japanese children".
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