introduction

Introduction

The last ten years in the 20th century, from the viewpoint of female human rights and sex equality, were paradoxical for Japan. On one hand, in Japan, at last a series of basic laws protecting the human rights of women came into being.

For example, the Law for the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims, although inadequate, was enacted in 2001, and the Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society was made legal and enforced since 1999. The law sets as its principal purpose to promote efficiently "respect for individuals" and "equality under the law" stipulated under the Constitution of Japan, and declares "no gender-based discriminatory treatment of women or men", "the securing of opportunities for men and women to exercise their abilities as individuals", etc, and gives the responsibilities to the State and the local governments for "the comprehensive formulation and implementation of policies related to promotion of formation of a Gender-equal Society (including positive action) ." In the same year, the Law for punishing acts related to child prostitution and child pornography were enacted, and child pornography and child prostitution which had been nearly uncontrolled till then came to be legally banned.

And the plaintiff women in the sexual harassment trial gained victories one after another, and the social perception to the violence against woman progressed although little by little.

However, on the other hand, sex work theory has spread in the 90s and the arguments that nothing was wrong with pornography or prostitution because of the consent of persons concerned, have swept over the media. And pornography and prostitution has become more epidemic in Japan, and serious crimes associated with them took place more frequently.

Moreover, the opportunities to use and exploit women sexually in the media and in everyday life increased substantially. For example, so many TV commercials and advertisements use women and children sexually, and a large amount of pornography is placed in convenience stores (Seven-Eleven, Lawson and so on).

Pornographic images, materials, and works penetrate the world of videos, DVD, the Internet, CATV, PC games and so on. The new communication technology always provides new means and opportunities for pornography, and promotes the daily sexual objectification of women more and more. In Japan, 30,000 titles of porno videos are made and put on the market every year. Moreover, the explosive spread of cellular phones and the expansion of the Internet enable persons to sell and buy female sexuality more easily, and to make the situation of prostitution in Japan more serious. In spite of the legal ban on prostitution targeting a child less than 18-years old, child prostitution using "meet-a-mate site" on the Internet and cellular phones don't disappear, rather they increase.

The reported incidents of sexual abuse against children, of sexual crimes by teachers, policemen and legal professionals, and of the indecent assaults (that is sexual assault without penis insertion) and rape, have increased in recent years. Here, we shall consider the recent five-year study of the reported number of indecent assault and rape cases.

Thus, on the face of it, these situations looked paradoxical in these past ten years.

Bearing in mind all these situations, what is most urgent is, we think, to set about the theoretical and analytical work of promoting the sexual personal rights and sex equality rights of women. Above all, investigating the real situation of the harms connected to pornography and prostitution in Japan and presenting a theoretical and practical direction for conquering them socially, have an independent significance. Social consciousness about sexual harassment and DV is recently progressing and official administrations and female movements take some measures, although still inadequate, against them, but as for pornography and prostitution, they are protected in the name of freedom of expression and the right to self-determination, and efforts and engagements on the side of female movements lag behind absolutely.

Having the above-mentioned concerns, experts and activists of various fields gathered together and organized "Anti-Pornography-&-Prostitution Research Group" in December 1999. As a group for research, criticism, and conquest of both pornography and prostitution, probably our group is a pioneer in Japan. It understands that both of them have a common social structure and logic, conceal the real situations under the ideology of "consents of the parties concerned", and promote sex discrimination and male dominance in the name of "sexual freedom". We are clearly based on feminism, not on a conservative moral. Furthermore, we consciously take an opposite standpoint to "sexual liberals" and "sex work theory".

As the first step of our activity, in February 2000, we published the 1st number of our organ: "Articles and Documents" including articles written by our members and translations of the important English articles on pornography, and many clippings of Japanese papers on the matter.

Next, as the second step, our group set about the task of "investigations and studies of the violation of females in the violent porno videos", which was a subsidy project of Tokyo Women's Foundation in 2000. In the project we analyzed violent porno videos made by popular porno video directors such as Baksheesh Yamashita and Katsuyuki Hirano, and tried to make clear what was done to women in them, how women were projected in them, and what effects were brought about in viewers of these videos. To sum up and report the results, we organized a conference: "Image and Violence: On Porno Videos and Human Rights" on 20 May 2001 at Women's Plaza in Tokyo. This conference achieved a big success in the participation of more than 80 people. On the same day, we published a report collection of the same name ("Articles and Documents" No. 2), which includes analyses and reports of our members on the violent porno videos, a interview with a former porn actor, a translation of "Pornography and Civil Rights" of C.MacKinnon and A.Dworkin.

Now, to make clear the whole picture of "the harms of pornography", our group is carrying out a nation-wide questionnaire targeting members of Women's Consulting Offices, female lawyers, and feminist counselors about whether they have received consultations on the harms of pornography, what the contents were, and so on. Furthermore, we also have immediate tasks to investigate the actual status of the legal regulation on pornography in other countries and to explore how to make legislative preparations for the redress of victims of pornography. We sincerely hope for your help and cooperation.