Many train lines in Japan have women’s only train carriages. This is designed to give women an place to ride the train without fear of the gropers, or molesters called “chikan” in Japanese. The special cars are generally available during rush hour only to prevent the overcrowded trains in Japan from providing opportunity and cover for would-be molesters. The mark here is the symbol of the “Josei Senyo Sharyo ni Hantai Suru-Kai” which is the largest group organizing the protests.

The group proposes at several alternatives to women’s only cars:

• Uniformed officers on trains and platforms
• Emergency microphones on trains so that any call for help will be heard (in addition to the emergency buttons which one would have to be near to push)
• Uniformed citizen volunteer patrols of trains during rush hour
• Efforts by train companies to reduce the rush hour crowds (cheap fares for off-peak riders, off-peak transpasses, etc.)

Sometimes during rush hour, the women’s only car is the only one with any breathing room while the rest are packed well-beyond comfort. There have recently been a rise in the number of men participating in planned protests against the “josei senyosha”. The men show up at the platform at a certain time and enter the female only car as a group.

Below is an audio recording of one of the “protests”, and one older woman who was especially vocal screaming “Oriro!” (Get off!) and some other not-so-nice things repeatedly at the men.

It seems to me that there are a lot of losers in this situation, and although the problem was caused by the existence and spread of the “chikan” problem, whether women’s only cars are the best way for Japanese society to deal with it is still questionable.

One body that may have the power to alleviate the problem is the powerful train and subway industry that chooses to run trains at such an unhealthy capacity.

This story is an interesting one because it is a modern view of what’s going on in Japan. If you are already confused about fashion in Japan, school rules about hair coloring, and what people think of all the bleached blonde boys and girls running around the streets here, this story is not going to help you understand anything.

The following tweet on Twitter caused a stir in Japan:

A concise translation is that “motyli” the author of the tweet was riding the train and a very cute young girl was standing in front of motyli. The girl was telling her friend that her mother had said, “These days girls with black hair are being targeted by strange men. Just go bleach your hair,” and handed her some money.

If you come to visit Japan, especially during the summer time, you’ll see a lot of girls with bleached hair, or at least highlights in their hair. Some will even have this unnatural orange color. However the Japanese idols that seem the most popular with men are ones with straight black hair. As the schools tell the girls not to color their hair, often claiming that girls with their hair colored are more likely victims of assault (I don’t know how common this claim is, but I’ve heard it on more than one occasion), this mother is using the same logic as a reason for her daughter to color her hair.

The idea behind the hair bleaching seems two-fold. One is that she won’t seem so innocent and attractive to the “otaku” types or the older men who lust after the young teen idols. (I am referring to the kind of guys that say they are going to kill themselves or someone else when a manga character they like gets a boyfriend, or it’s implied that she’s not a virgin… god forbid an actual human teen idol singer gets a boyfriend or is seen smoking.) The bleached hair sort of destroys the image of innocence. Another reason this mother may think her daughter should bleach her hair for her own protection is that mom may think it’ll make her daughter look like a tough girl.

My opinion is that in a country with a NEED for women’s only cars on trains, hair color is not going to be a big preventative weapon in the battle against sexual harassment and “chikan” or gropers. I think, as I’ve mentioned on this blog before, that the problems need to be dragged out into the open. The girl with black hair being stalked for looking pure and classically Japanese is only going to be changing the demographic of her stalker when she changes her hair color.

What we need is for Japanese men AND women to start educating Japanese boys and girls about being proud of themselves, loving themselves, and protecting themselves. Maybe Twitter and blogging and the like are the kind of anonymous places that can kick start a revolution of openness in Japan, or maybe I’m too optimistic as usual.

I thought my next update about this case would be some months down the line, however even at this early date the case has been settled. The victim has agreed to an undisclosed financial settlement with the six men sh accused of rape.

The settlement seems to imply that the six Kyoto University of Education students were guilty as charged although the case will now never go to trial.

So what does this mean?

There is a very good chance that all six of these guys will be teachers within the next few years. It also sets a scary precedent when you think of how the situation unfolded.

A gang rape at a party. One graduate who is currently a teacher in an elementary school in Nara was a lookout for six student athletes who took advantage of a drunk female student. The university found out about what happened but never reported it to police, instead suspending the six students temporarily and temporarily avoiding any media coverage.  By the time the story broke, the rape was months old. As far as I know, Kyoto University of Education received no penalty or reprimand for not reporting the case to police.

Once the case went public, people close to the case or people involved slandered the girl on social networking sites while the bulletin board dwellers went to her defense.

Now that the case has been settled, many of the people on the bulletin boards are crying foul for the girl having given up the case. Some people are accusing her of having had yen signs in her eyes from the beginning. Other people argue that this is clear evidence that all six were guilty, and if they really were telling the truth they would have gone to court to fight the charges. For the record, many people were unclear on the exact meaning of “settlement” or “jidan” in Japanese.

The bottom line is the case has been settled, and this clears their records. It seems to mean that they will graduate and probably be teaching children soon.

If any more news is leaked about the conditions of the settlement and what will become of the Kyoto University of Education rape case six, I will be sure to post an update.

In a previous post I wrote about six Kyoto University of Education students who raped a girl at a party in February. The university never reported the incident to police until June. There were some pretty outrageous moral violations by the school, such things as refusing to report the incident to authorities, and the fact that the perpetrators were not even expelled from the school.

In an explanation meeting held on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009, Kyoto University of Education president Mitsuyo Terada  spoke in front a nearly full, four hundred fifty person classroom, and addressed students directly.

During the meeting, Terada explained why the six perpetrators were never expelled from the school despite having gang raped another student by explaining that the university itself is an educational university, and it is their responsibility to help rehabilitate the perpetrators and help them become productive members of society.

Here is an article (in Yahoo News in Japanese) describing Kyoto University of Education’s meeting with students.

Since, I feel its therapeutic for me to comment on the stories, please indulge me in a little sarcasm…

…I believe what this educator and university president has thought of  is quite revolutionary. He has decided to open his school up and offer it as an alternative to prison. If he feels there is a place in a well-regarded education university for six violent rapists, I’m sure he would be honored to accept a Yakuza member whose only crime is shooting a few rivals. The Yakuza member would probably never think to do harm to other members of the university community, unlike the six criminals he has offered golden tickets to. If his school’s responsibility to society is to rehabilitate felons, I’m sure he would be happy to play host to any illegal immigrants in Japan who have been discovered after countless years of living a law abiding life in Japan. Maybe the next generation of teachers in Japan will all have a “story to tell”. I also expect these future ex-killers and rapist-turned-teachers to cast a very forgiving eye on students who’ve forgotten to do their homework.

Stable leader Junichi Yamamoto (formerly Tokitsukaze) who ordered members of his Sumo gym to beat and abuse a sixteen year old junior Sumo wrestler (including breaking beer bottles over his head and hitting him with an aluminum baseball bat) resulting in his death, could be a future valedictorian.

Thank you for indulging me in a little sarcasm there, but I am surprised the Japanese authorities are not coming down on Kyoto University of Education for trying to handle this crime off-record and for even now making a mockery of any laws designed to protect victims of sexual assault.

By now, I assume that the big gang rape incident at prestigious Kyoto University (link goes to news story in Japanese) is international news, and I would not like to go into the details of the incident. However, of interest to students of the media and society in Japan are the reasons that Kyoto University of Education used to explain not having brought the crime to the attention of police in a timely fashion.

Arrested were six male members of Kyoto University of Education sports teams, including members of the (American) football team, the track and field team, the handball team, and the soccer team. They met the victim at a “kompa” or a party at which males and females of the same number get together with the intention of finding a boyfriend of girlfriend. Other than the six perpetrators, there were reportedly several other people there who had knowledge of, and could have prevented or put a stop to the crime.

The party at which the rape happened occurred on February 25th of this year. Kyoto University of Education officially knew of the incident in March. The university decided not to report the incident to police and to deal with it independently. Although the university decided to deal with the matter internally, officials also deny that Kyoto University of Education is in any way responsible in the matter because the party was not organized by the university.

The crime was never publicly announced by the university because officials said they were concerned that the perpetrators would try to hurt themselves (or commit suicide). The perpetrators were given open-ended suspensions from the university at the end of March. (Note: not expulsion!) Some of them were seniors, but I have not been able to find whether they were allowed to graduate (which would have happened in February or March).

The students involved were education majors. Most of them were future gym teachers. Teachers and coaches in the physical education department also reportedly could not agree that this was a case of rape and that (supposedly) also prevented the crime from being reported to police.

I have reported about countless cases when something happened at a university or school, and nothing is done until it is far too late. Although there is no mention in the article, my personal concern about the story is the victim. What happened to the victim in this case? Did she quit school? Will she be able to finish? What of the other people who were at the party, and according to the news, “could have prevented or stopped the crime”. Will they be prosecuted or sued? Probably not, but I would like to see the punishment fit the crime in this case.

There have been other cases in the news of a similar nature; the Keio University Med students who gang raped a student from another university during a “kompa” party at a karaoke shop, and others. I have been looking for verification of this, but I heard that many of them simply transferred to less well-known medical schools and are now working as doctors. There are also accounts of parties at well-known universities designed to set up rape situations. Here is an article from the Times Online in 2003 about some of the rapes that have occured in universities in Japan.

We need openness, and a country in which victims of crimes can feel that if they talk to someone about what happened to them, they can at least get some sort of vindication, rather than being victimized again by the system.

I really am looking for positive news to write about but this kind of randomly violent crime just keeps jumping out at me.

If you’ve been to Osaka, you probably know the big Hep Five mall (with the big Ferris Wheel on top). At the North entrance to Hep Five, two guys approached a girl in an attempt to do “nampa” or picking up a girl you don’t know on the street.

The girl was a 21 year old nail artist. The men were between the ages of 25 and 30. One, the one that cut the girl, was slightly overweight wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a white jacket. The other one was wearing an orange checked shirt.

When the girl ignored the guys, they punched her two or three times and then one of them took out a 10cm bladed object and cut her left cheek.

A girl at the scene was interviewed as having said that guys often try to pick girls up near Hep Five, but because of the number of people around she didn’t think it would ever be dangerous to turn them down.

I used to write a lot about the bad teachers in the new here in Japan. They were all shapes of wacky, evil, and embarrassing, but it got pretty depressing for me so I stopped. I think most teachers have good intentions (even if I don’t think many have been properly trained in education, teaching methods, and educational psychology).

I couldn’t let this one pass, though.

The 51 year old male advisor of the art club at Akita Prefectural Odate High School forced an 18 year old female member of the club to wear a maid uniform. He also let other members of the club take pictures of her.

He forced her by threatening to withhold her Japanese language class credits (thus preventing her from graduating).

When the student told office staff at the school what had happened, the teacher was reprimanded and went to the girl’s home with the school’s vice principal to apologize. The pictures were also reportedly deleted.

He has been relieved of duty as the advisor of the club but returned to his teaching duties after apologizing in front of the entire student body. He later that he thought the girl would take it as a joke.

My commentary will be pretty brief here… 

HE’S STILL TEACHING!!

The school can argue that he didn’t touch the girl or anything like that, but to embarrass her in front of her classmates is horrible. This is a clear case of harassment. He used his power over her school credits to threaten her into a sexual or otherwise embarrassing situation against her will.

And he’s still teaching… the articles I’ve seen didn’t say, but I assume he is also still teaching the girl in question, as are other senior members of the club.

Since the incident happened in late September the girl has already graduated… a convenient time for the school to own up to what’s happened. It’s a prefectural school as well so it would also be convenient to just transfer the teacher to another school in Akita  where nobody knows about this incident. He can start fresh with a new club, although he’ll probably have to buy a new maid uniform with the club’s funds. 

If I sound a little jaded, I apologize but I’ve seen some pretty horrid things that resulted in nothing more than a slap on the wrist and a transfer to a school across town.

A list of members of the Waseda University who sought counseling for sexual harassment, “power harassment”, or stalking was released on the internet through file sharing software. On the list were 390 cases which listed the names and addresses of victims, the reason for seeking counseling, and the name of the accused. The list referred to people who sought counseling between 1999 and 2005.

An employee of the university who was a member of the Anti-harassment Committee reportedly brought the data home. She then sent the data to a friend by e-mail requesting that he help her create a database to manage the data. The data was leaked onto the internet by file sharing data on the man’s computer.

Waseda University released a statement saying that the data is only a record of counseling and although there are several people listed as accused in the file, this is no indication of guilt.

The school apologized to all those who may have been troubled by the release of the information.

Commentary:

Briefly, the original Japanese article here explicitly listed the person who brought the information home as a female staff member, and the friend who inadvertently leaked the information as a male friend. I’m not sure why, but there may be something more to the story.

How many of these 390 cases went beyond the counseling stage?

Here’s a link to the Waseda University Sexual Harassment Information Committee website’s “The Process of Counseling” which describes the confidentiality policies in section four.

There are strong assurances that confidentiality will be “strictly kept” and that committee members are “legally bound not to speak of any information they have concerning the consulting and counseling”.

The committee’s website above also outlines what one must do if a resolution is desired. The language seems to imply that they hope you decide that you are satisfied with just counseling, but there is a very convoluted and difficult sounding process to follow if one should want some kind of resolution. There are multiple committees and appeals involved so I won’t go into it here, but it seems that the road from counseling to legal action is a long and winding one… uphill, in traffic.

If you’ve read this blog before you know that one of the themes is that social problems need to be brought out into the open in order to be solved. Here’s another case of that with a twist. There is a committee in place to help the victims, but a process which seems nearly impossible to traverse if one wants disciplinary action taking. Add to that a staff that takes all too lightly their own confidentiality policy.

There was another recent case of professor accepting bribes to give a good review to PhD students’ theses… (if anyone’s interested in the details I can dig them up)

This time we have a case of a Chiba University professor threatened saying that she would never be able to graduate without his help. In return for his help, he asked her to “be his lover for 6 months.”

Several students are believed to have visited the professor’s home, or received preferential treatment in various ways.

(Note: most of the articles on this topic describe the woman as a PhD candidate, which would mean that she was in the doctoral program already. The Japanese article describes her as a graduate student. I assume this means she was in the Master’s program.)

One of the students helped by the professor was given a graduate school entrance exam on which all of the questions in the English section were the same as those used the previous year.

Here’s the article in the Japan Times: “High School Principal’s Office Searched Over Alleged E-mail Threats to Woman“

You have to love the quote, “I can kill somebody in cold blood.”

I always wondered why people think that’s going to get somebody to come back to you.

Another thought, given that the girl is in her 20s is the question of whether or not she is a former student of his, or someone he met over the internet.