Photographers Find Sex Crime Loophole

[Mulboyne]

Not Guilty

Yomiuri: Assaults on aspiring models rise - Internet model sites can act as loophole in dating site control law

The number of cases in which girls under 18 were sexually assaulted after being recruited as photographers' models via Web sites is on the rise, according to the Internet Association of Japan...A senior Kanagawa prefectural police officer said, "This kind of crime has been on the increase in the last few years, but it hasn't been reflected in the statistics." In many cases, girls agreed to payments beforehand or followed men to hotels, making it difficult to prove if a particular incident constituted a sexual assault. In other cases, girls felt unable to tell their parents what had happened and did not make formal complaints to the police...Lawyer Toru Okumura, who is well versed in Internet crime, said these sites offer a loophole in the dating site control law

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[t]sex[/t] [t]crime[/t] [t]internet[/t] [t]tokyo[/t] [t]japan[/t] [t]law[/t] [t]models[/t] [t]photography[/t]

[Mulboyne]

The number of cases in which girls under 18 were sexually assaulted after being recruited as photographers' models via Web sites is on the rise, according to the Internet Association of Japan. The association on Tuesday announced that it had investigated the contents of 100 sites after an Internet search for "model recruitment." Of the sites, 14 featured sections where photographers and those wanting to be models could exchange information. Eight of the sites allowed girls under 18 to register. On the sites, some photographers stipulated models should wear their school uniform or other particular kinds of clothes, while girls listed their desired payment rates depending on what they were asked to wear, such as swimsuit or underwear.

In a child pornography case uncovered last year by Kanagawa and Nara prefectural police, the suspect solicited more than 100 girls under 18 by promising payments of between 50,000 yen and 100,000 yen on his Web site. The man recorded scenes in which an actor had sex with the girls or raped them, and sold the videotapes. The films were also made available on the Internet, meaning that the data is unrecoverable in its entirety, leaving images of the victims still in circulation. A senior Kanagawa prefectural police officer said, "This kind of crime has been on the increase in the last few years, but it hasn't been reflected in the statistics." In many cases, girls agreed to payments beforehand or followed men to hotels, making it difficult to prove if a particular incident constituted a sexual assault. In other cases, girls felt unable to tell their parents what had happened and did not make formal complaints to the police.

The police officer said, "Many girls readily meet men who are complete strangers, and are often brutalized." Some of the sites recruiting models prohibit postings by girls under 18, with warnings that such postings will be deleted if found. But the association said its difficult to know what the true situation is because mobile phone Internet sites are not regulated and it is easy to falsely report one's age. Lawyer Toru Okumura, who is well versed in Internet crime, said these sites offer a loophole in the dating site control law. One countermeasure may be to increase the number and kinds of sites that can be regulated, but there are unlimited terms apart from modeling that can be used to attract girls, and thus it is difficult to solve the problem, he said.

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Modeling 'a way to rebel'

A third-year girl student at a middle school in Tokyo told The Yomiuri Shimbun last year how she posted a message on an Internet bulletin board that was recruiting models. She stipulated that her conditions were that not appear naked and that receive at least 5,000 yen per hour. The girl, whose name is being withheld due to her age, met four men after contacting them via the Internet. "I didn't meet men who sounded suspect when I first spoke to them on the phone," she said. But once, when she met a man in his 40s in a hotel room, he threatened her, demanding she let him take a photo of her naked. The girl quoted him as saying, "You'd better do it if you want that amount of cash."

She also said that she had once been given an envelope containing blank sheets of paper, instead of banknotes. Her friend was gang-raped when she went to a hotel room to find a group of men waiting for her, she said. But the girl added, "Sure there's a risk, but I need money to buy the things I want. It's also a way to rebel against my parents." "Victims are physically adults, but they're still naive," said Junko Miyamoto, a representative of the international nongovernmental organization End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography And Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes/Stop Japan. "They often act in the heat of the moment or are easily taken in. Adults should let them know what life's really like and admonish them harshly."

[maninjapan]

I wonder how many classifieds in Metropolis are guilty of this?

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: Police zoom in on business daily shutterbug over teen porn queen focus

An accused pedophile delighted to catch out a junior high school girl pretending to be over 18 responded by dressing her up as a kindergartner after he paid her for a romp in a hotel, according to Shukan Gendai. Taisei Kato, an employee of the Nikkei -- a staid business daily was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department for breaking the law banning child pornography and child prostitution after he allegedly paid the 15-year-old schoolgirl for sex. The weekly says Kato, while still based at the Nikkei's Tokyo headquarters in January last year, met the girl when she was working as a model who posed for amateur shutterbugs. It adds she also accepted freelance jobs that were little more than a front for enjo kosai, the euphemism Japanese use to describe what is mostly teenage prostitution...more...