Brothels Must Go

Six times since World War II the good women of Japan have tried to strip the cloak of legal protection from the backs of their scarlet sisters.

Each time, their efforts have been frustrated, though less and less firmly; male legislators perversely refused to outlaw the ancient profession of prostitution that, with some 500,000 practitioners, flourishes in Japan as it does almost nowhere else. Infamous the world over, Tokyo's thriving red-light districts, ranging from the lacquered pleasure domes of Yoshiwara to the noisome and disreputable turmoil of Shinjuku and Kamedo, have felt the chill winds of reform blow closer and closer, but each time the storm has passed.

Resisting the Present. Some 70 delegations of prostitutes met recently in an old wrestling arena to establish a protective union, which they called "The Federation of All Japan Special Eating and Drinking Establishments Working Girls' Unions." To the embarrassment of Premier Hatoyama's Liberal-Democratic Party, Japan's brothel owners, operating as "The National Venereal Disease Prevention Autonomous Association," showered the city's bars and bordellos with handbills urging pimps and prostitutes to join the government party en masse, to protect their legislative interests from within.

But it was all to no avail. Last week, as a detachment of dedicated females watched sternly from the balcony, Japan's legislators unanimously passed the first antiprostitution bill in Japanese history. "It was bound to happen sooner or later," said one shrugging male legislator.

But what made it possible was the fact that the bill itself was as full of leaks as a wicker basket. Not to go into effect for a year, it provides only mild penalties--six months in jail or a maximum $27 fine --for "soliciting openly in public ... or embracing or seizing a prospective partner." On procurers, who roam the Japanese countryside offering poverty-stricken farmers cash loans in return for the indentured services of their daughters, penalties were tougher: up to three years in prison or a maximum $277 fine.*Toughest of all are the penalties on bordello mama-sans (madams): up to ten years in jail or a maximum $833 fine. Financial aid was promised to help local communities rehabilitate their ex-prostitutes, but there was no compulsion on the girls to learn better ways, and no penalty whatever on the private practice of their profession in private quarters.

Preparing the Future. For months many girls in Shinjuku and Kamedo have contributed some 100 yen daily out of their earnings to establish a private rehabilitation fund against the gloomy day that dawned last week, but many another had no intention of quitting her calling. For the enterprising individual, there was still future enough in such establishments as Tokyo's New Opal Hotel, which runs a daily ad in English-language Tokyo papers: "Here is the place you pay only 800 yen with your partner to stay overnight including one free drink. Each room with double-sized bed and radio."

Said one member of the brothel owners' association: "Nobody's panicking yet."

* A more important blow: last year's Japanese Supreme Court decision, holding debts secured by indentured service to be legally uncollectible.

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