Recent discussion of sexual violence (#I'm Not Afraid to Say #I'm Not Afraid to Say #IAmNotAfraidToSayIt ) gave us the idea to describe the state of sexual discrimination in Japan. The situation turned out to be dire. We have renamed the previous article and started a series on gender equality.
The statistics on sexual violence here, even at 5%, probably don't reflect reality.
TOKYO, 2008
The car drives slowly along the parking lot, no one around. The policeman asks: "Where did this happen?"She looks incredulously, trying to understand that the very people who should protect her brought her to this terrible place, imprinted in her memory.
Here, in a parking lot near the Yokosuka US base, Jane became a victim of rape. And no less terrible than the crime itself was her communication with the people to whom she turned for help and justice.
For the past six years, Jane has been fighting for rape victims to be treated differently in Japan. She has recently overcome media silence and has held many press conferences in the past few months, speaking in front of thousands of activists. However, until Japan's laws are changed, many women will see rapists walking free and feel pressure from the criminal justice system - which is supposed to protect.
She herself does not remember much of what happened on April 6, 2002. Australian Jane (around 30 years old) was waiting for her friend in a bar in Yokosuka, not far from the American military base. The only thing she remembers is that she was attacked, and after the violence she crawled out of the car in search of help.
As it turned out, the nightmare was just beginning. The first thing she did was report to the Yokosuka Military Police office. It happened outside the base and it was not their jurisdiction, so the Kanagawa Prefectural Police came.
When they arrived, Jane was questioned and then taken to the crime scene and eventually to the Kanagawa Police Station for detailed questioning. Into a room where there were many male police officers (women who have been subjected to violence know what we are talking about - translator's note).
She asked many times to take her to the hospital - but all her requests were rejected. "I was told that the ambulance is for emergencies - and rape is not," says Jane.
Instead of calling a doctor or counselor, the police questioned Jane for several hours. Incredibly, the doctors were not called to her, although she wanted to wash herself off, but she did not want to destroy the evidence, she still had no underwear and there were traces of the rapist’s sperm on her body. She decided to wait until she was examined at the hospital. She also suspects she was drugged, but police haven't done blood tests and she can't say for sure.
A few days later she was brought there again to show her the exact place where she lay.
That same night, the police found the rapist. He turned out to be a US Navy employee, Bloke T. Deans, and was taken to the Kanagawa Police Station for questioning and released. For unclear reasons, they refused to initiate criminal proceedings. It is not surprising if you know that in 2006 ( last year, for which data was available in 2008, when the article was written), only 1,948 rapes were reported in Japan, and only 1,058 perpetrators were arrested.
After police failed to file a criminal case against her rapist, Jane filed a civil suit -- and the rapist's lawyer dropped the case, saying he couldn't find a client. Jane won the lawsuit in November 2004 and was awarded 3 million yen in damages, but for three and a half years she received nothing - he walks free.
Unfortunately, Jane's ordeal is hardly an isolated incident. Japan's official rape figures paint only a small part of a larger, sadder picture. The National Police Agency's annual report shows the number of reported rapes began to rise in 1997. The figure peaked at 2,472 in 2003, and has been slowly declining since then.
We only know about 11% of sex crimes
A 2000 study by the Ministry of Justice found that only about 11% of sex crimes in Japan are reported, and the Rape Crisis Center believes the situation is likely much worse, with 10 to 20 times the number of reported cases. In Japan, rape is a crime that requires a formal complaint by the victim. In many cases, settlements end out of court and the rapists go free, said Chijima Naomi of the Justice Department research group.In 2006, the Japan Equality Bureau published a study entitled "Violence between Men and Women." Of the 1,578 women surveyed, 7.2% said they had been raped at least once. 67% of these rapes were committed by someone the victim “knew well,” and 19% by someone “they had seen before.” Only 5.3% of victims reported the crime to the police, about 6 people out of 114 cases. Of those who remained silent, almost 40% said that “they were ashamed.”
Six years later, Jane continues her struggle.
*Contact Tokyo Rape Crisis Center*Get urgent medical care and document everything. You will need as much evidence as possible. Jane recommends going to the hospital before contacting the police (remember, the data is from 2008 - translator's note. We do not know the situation today).
* Inform the embassy or consulate. They can help. Take an embassy official or a friend when you go to the police.
*Ask people who have experienced it. Contact our support team Warriors Japan ( [email protected]) or Lamplighters Japan.
(© Japan Mirror)
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According to government survey results, 32.9% married women have been subjected to domestic violence.
These figures have remained virtually unchanged since two years - 2005 and 2008 - which means that the assistance provided is still not enough to finally solve the problem that affects a third of Japanese families.
25% of victims reported that their husbands pushed them, punched and/or kicked them, and in 6% of cases the beatings occurred more than once. 14% were forced by their husbands to have sexual relations with them. 17% of respondents were subjected to psychological bullying: they were insulted, banned from visiting a number of places, or constantly watched.
At the same time, 41.4% of respondents did not tell anyone about the current situation and suffered alone. 57% endured violence and did not file for divorce “for the sake of the children,” 18% because of economic difficulties.
As the case of San Francisco Vice-Consul Yoshiaki Nagaya showed, domestic violence is not “the province” of any particular socioeconomic group. In March, Nagai was arrested at the request of his wife, who presented photographs of the injuries inflicted on her to the investigation. In just a year and a half, 13 similar cases accumulated, and once Nagai (who, by the way, did not plead guilty) knocked out his wife’s tooth, on another occasion he pierced his palm with a screwdriver between his thumb and index finger.
The consequences of domestic violence can be quite serious and long-lasting. Victims often develop depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep and eating disorders, and other psychological problems.
Moreover, these consequences affect not only the women themselves, but also children. Some victims mistakenly believe that they have the power to protect children from the consequences of violence. However, children raised in such families continue to suffer from emotional and behavioral disturbances throughout their lives.
Violence has many causes, but in many cases it is possible to eradicate it, although it is difficult. What is more urgent is providing therapy and counseling to victims, who must remember that there is always hope.
The government must provide full support to hotlines so that more women can seek help and stop violence against themselves. In addition, police officers must be well prepared to deal with cases of domestic violence.
The government needs to pay more attention to the issue of domestic violence as little is being done in this area at the moment. Taking steps to reduce and eliminate violence will not only help women, but also children, families and communities.
: The Japan Times, 05/13/2012
Translation into Russian: Anastasia Kalcheva for “Fushigi Nippon /”, 05/13/2012
According to a government survey, 32.9% of married women have experienced domestic violence.
These figures have remained virtually unchanged since the previous two surveys - 2005 and 2008 - which means that the assistance provided is still not enough to finally solve the problem that affects a third of Japanese families.
25% of victims reported that their husbands pushed them, punched and/or kicked them, and in 6% of cases the beatings occurred more than once. 14% were forced by their husbands to have sexual relations with them. 17% of respondents were subjected to psychological bullying: they were insulted, banned from visiting a number of places, or constantly watched.
At the same time, 41.4% of respondents did not tell anyone about the current situation and suffered alone. 57% endured violence and did not file for divorce “for the sake of the children,” 18% because of economic difficulties.
As the case of San Francisco Vice-Consul Yoshiaki Nagaya showed, domestic violence is not “the province” of any particular socioeconomic group. In March, Nagai was arrested at the request of his wife, who presented photographs of the injuries inflicted on her to the investigation. In just a year and a half, 13 similar cases accumulated, and once Nagai (who, by the way, did not plead guilty) knocked out his wife’s tooth, on another occasion he pierced his palm with a screwdriver between his thumb and index finger.
The consequences of domestic violence can be quite serious and long-lasting. Victims often develop depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep and eating disorders, and other psychological problems.
Moreover, these consequences affect not only the women themselves, but also children. Some victims mistakenly believe that they have the power to protect children from the consequences of violence. However, children raised in such families continue to suffer from emotional and behavioral disturbances throughout their lives.
Violence has many causes, but in many cases it is possible to eradicate it, although it is difficult. What is more urgent is providing therapy and counseling to victims, who must remember that there is always hope.
The government must provide full support to hotlines so that more women can seek help and stop violence against themselves. In addition, police officers must be well prepared to deal with cases of domestic violence.
The government needs to pay more attention to the issue of domestic violence as little is being done in this area at the moment. Taking steps to reduce and eliminate violence will not only help women, but also children, families and communities.
"Comfort Women"
The first "station" opened in Shanghai in 1932. And first, Japanese female volunteers were brought there. But it soon became clear that many military brothels were needed and Japanese women alone could not do it. Therefore, the “stations” began to be replenished with women from the Philippine and Indonesian camps. They were accompanied by girls from Japanese-occupied territories.
The first "comfort stations" in Shanghai
Women who found themselves at “comfort stations” ended up in hell, where the chances of survival were practically reduced to zero. They had to serve several dozen soldiers per day. Among sex slaves, the most common topic of conversation was suicide. They either dissuaded each other, or, on the contrary, advised how to quickly say goodbye to life. Some were engaged in theft. While the soldier was “busy,” opium was taken from him. And then they purposefully took it in large quantities in order to die from an overdose. The second tried to poison themselves with unknown drugs, the third simply tried to hang themselves.
"Comfort stations" were created to reduce the number of rapes
The “comfort women” were examined weekly by doctors. And if there were sick or pregnant women, they were immediately given a special “drug 606”. In the first, it muffled the symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases, in the second, it provoked a miscarriage.
By the fall of 1942, there were already about four hundred “comfort stations”. Most of them were in occupied Chinese territory. A dozen “registered” on Sakhalin. But despite this, the number of rapes committed by Japanese soldiers did not decrease. Because the services of “comfort women” had to be paid for. Therefore, many preferred to save and spend money, for example, on opium.
The exact number of women who ended up in military brothels is unknown
By that time there were very few Japanese women at the “stations”. They were replaced by Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese women. Data on the number of sex slaves varies greatly. For example, Japanese authorities claim that there were just over 20 thousand. Koreans talk about 200 thousand of their fellow citizens. For the Chinese, this figure is much more impressive - more than 400 thousand.
Hunting for women
Since Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945, it was most convenient to take women from there. They at least partially knew Japanese (they forced me to learn), which made the communication process easier.
At first, the Japanese recruited Korean women. But gradually, when there were not enough women, they resorted to various tricks. For example, they offered high-paying jobs that did not require special training, or they simply kidnapped them.
Here is what the Japanese Yoshima Seichi, who was a member of the Yamaguchi Society of Laborers, said: “I was a hunter for Korean women in camp brothels for sexual entertainment of the Japanese soldiers. More than 1,000 Korean women were taken there under my command. Under the supervision of armed police, we kicked women who resisted and took away their babies. Throwing away the two- and three-year-old children running after their mothers, we forcibly pushed the Korean women into the back of the truck, and there was a commotion in the villages. We sent them as cargo in freight trains and on ships to the command of the troops of the western part. Undoubtedly, we did not recruit them, but drove them away by force.”
Korean women were forced into sexual slavery
Here are his memories of the everyday life of the “comfort stations”: “One Korean woman per day was raped on average by 20-30, even more than 40 Japanese officers and soldiers, and in mobile brothels - more than 100. Many Korean women tragically died due to sexual violence and cruel oppression by Japanese sadists. Having stripped the disobedient Korean women naked, they rolled them on boards with large nails driven upward, and cut off their heads with a sword. Their monstrous atrocities exceeded all human imagination.”
The truth revealed
Information about Japanese atrocities began to leak out only in the mid-1980s. By that time, most of the Korean women who found themselves at the “stations” had either already died or gone crazy. And those who managed to survive hell remained silent, fearing the revenge of the Japanese.
Park Yong Sim is one of the first Korean women to talk in detail about her life in “camp brothels.” At the age of 22, she, along with other Korean girls, was brought to the Chinese city of Nanjing in a closed carriage. There they assigned me to a brothel, fenced with barbed wire. Yong Sim, like other sex slaves, was given a tiny room without amenities.
For a long time, the surviving Korean women were silent, fearing revenge
This is what she recalled: “The Japanese soldiers, all as one, rushed at me like angry animals. If someone tried to resist, then punishment immediately followed: they kicked them, stabbed them with a knife. Or, if the “offence” was great, they cut off the head with a sword... Later I returned to my homeland, but crippled - due to heart disease and disorder nervous system At night I rush around in delirium. Every time those terrible days are involuntarily remembered, the whole body trembles with burning hatred for the Japanese.”
Soldiers queuing at a brothel
Now elderly Korean women who were once forced into brothels are living out their days in a nursing home. It is located next to the museum, where evidence of their stay at the “comfort stations” is collected.
So, in previous chapters we studied the history of the development of the thriller genre in Japanese cinema and large quantities we saw that with the development of cinema, violence on Japanese screens became more and more common. The reason for this, of course, was the development of technology - the creation of special effects, social problems that arose in society and simply the desire of directors to stand out and show themselves to the whole world.
But what distinguishes Japanese thrillers from thrillers in other countries? Why can we often see queries in Internet search engines “why is Japanese cinema so violent?” If we analyze various ratings of the most violent and bloody films, then we will see the predominance of Japanese films. In such a situation, many viewers who are completely unfamiliar with Japanese culture develop an incorrect and often negative attitude towards the Japanese. They simply begin to consider them terribly cruel people and often even talk about their inadequacy.
One of the features of the depiction of violence in Japanese cinema is its realism. Indeed, Japanese directors are particularly good at scenes of murder, torture and violence. Everything is thought out and depicted down to the smallest detail. Sometimes when watching bloody scenes, it seems that everything is happening for real. Often scenes of torture or murder last for a very long time, and some films, as we already know, are entirely devoted to violence against one person. Japanese directors spend a lot of time studying the characteristics of the human body, torture, and if they depict a serial killer in their work, they study in detail his biography and the crimes he committed. Thus, we can say that the directors produce not just “crap”, but create a real work of art, albeit unique and not aimed at the general public.
Some directors specifically shoot their films with an amateur camera, without any special effects, in order to create the atmosphere of reality as much as possible. Even the cassettes and discs on which the films are recorded are made as similar as possible to amateur ones. There is a story that a famous American actor found a cassette with a snuff film at home and, after watching it, ran to the police, because he mistook this film for filming real events. Stories like this are not uncommon. Indeed, there are many cases where Japanese snuff films are examined to determine whether they are real events or whether the work is all editing and the use of special effects.
The next feature is exaggeration or, as many film critics say, theatricality. Indeed, the Japanese are prone to exaggeration, and in the movies we can see this especially clearly - a huge amount of blood, scenes of torture and murder. Many films are spoiled due to the abundance of violent scenes. Sometimes the film has no plot or meaning, the entire film is occupied only by scenes of violence. A striking example is the film “The Crow: The Beginning” (2007). The number of scenes with fights, in my opinion, is impossible to count, and the number of scenes with the main plot, on the contrary, is negligible. The abundance of violent scenes in films makes them boring already in the middle of watching, and the desire to watch the film further disappears. It seems that in their desire to impress the audience, the directors forget about the main idea that they want to convey to us.
Now we can often see a situation where American directors make films based on Japanese originals. This happens precisely because of the abundance of violence on the screen. In America, scary films are very popular among teenagers and children, but parents cannot allow them to watch Japanese films, in which, as we already know, scenes of violence can take center stage and last very long. for a long time. American directors reduce the number of such scenes and often introduce a dose of humor into their films, thereby making the work easier.
It is very difficult to judge the audience's attitude towards this kind of film. There are people who are avowed fans of Japanese violent films, and there are people who believe they should be banned (about 0.1% of Japanese violent films are banned). However, there are directors whose films are highly regarded among world critics and are masterpieces of world cinema, despite all their cruelty and bloodiness. I would also like to add that recently the Japanese have been leaders in the production of horror films and set the main trends. Some film critics say that Japanese directors were able to turn the thriller genre into real works of art.
I would also like to remind you of what we learned from the first chapters of this work. Japanese attitudes toward violence were often very different from Western ones. We also learned that violence was depicted in art long before the birth of the film industry in Japan. In my opinion, this confirms that cinema has become the next step in the development of the depiction of violence in Japanese art. Therefore, Japanese audiences are not as critical of the works of their directors as Western audiences are. This is one of the types of art that can rightfully exist and not be prohibited.
The question of how films with an abundance of violence influence a person is currently very much under discussion.
There is no denying that there are problems that violent films create.
For example, there have often been situations where films with a lot of violence inspired people to kill, and the murders could be carried out in the same style as on the screen. Thus, a 17-year-old student who raped 31 women admitted that he tried to recreate scenes that he saw on the screen or read. The story of the killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, who became known in Japan as the “little girl killer,” became famous. After the arrest of the killer, many cassettes with ero-guro or slash films were found in his apartment, including the Guinea Pig series of films, which we wrote about in previous chapters by Tsutomu Miyazaki. [Electronic resource]. - Access mode:
http://www.serial-killers.ru/karts/miyazaki.htm. Many believe that watching such films could have a direct effect on the killer's behavior. And there are quite a lot of such examples in Japan. This, by the way, led to the fact that the Guinea Pig series of films was banned from showing, and now it is distributed mainly to illegal images. I would like to emphasize that the films did not directly influence the actions of the killers. That is, they were not the direct cause of the crimes. Therefore, it cannot be said that only watching films had a direct influence on the actions of Japanese criminals. They were only one of the factors, but not the determining one. Violence in cinema, and indeed in mass media products in general, has given rise to another delicate problem in Japanese society - the refusal sexual relations. Recently, in films we can increasingly see scenes of rape or sexual abuse of women. This has become a fairly common plot, to the point where people can read perverted comics on the subway without being embarrassed by others at all. As a result, women begin to be disgusted by sex and refuse sexual relations with partners, and men, in turn, refuse conventional sexual relations, since in films and on television they can see more perverted things. Why are they abandoning traditional sex in Japan? [Electronic resource]. - Access mode:
http://www.wonderzine.com/wonderzine/life/life/197485-oh-japan.
Psychologists also study Japanese thrillers. And if they admit that sometimes a person needs to watch unpleasant films, and some psychologists even cured the phobias of their patients with their help, then controversy arises regarding Japanese films. It is believed that in Japanese films the killing takes place very slowly and in great detail, which can cause a person's gag reflexes. Indeed, there were cases when, when watching Japanese films with an abundance of violence, people in the audience felt ill, and sometimes the audience even fainted. Plus, scientists say that films may contain the 25th frame, which negatively affects the psyche. Articles about the harmful effects of Japanese films on the psyche are now very common on the Internet, and children and very impressionable people are not advised to watch Japanese films. Also, the result of the abundance of scenes of violence is the ban on showing films. Indeed, many Japanese films are not available for legal viewing because they are considered too violent.
