The market price is &#8220;15,000 yen per time,&#8221; and even a successful Thai male prostitute catches two customers in one hour.
<figure id="attachment_366811" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-366811" style="width: 3176px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="a3994b09"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/04/634a20ac08ea2fd5fa2109b9d847d4a8.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-366811" class="wp-caption-text"> Three women waiting for customers on the street. They were talking with a man on a bicycle for a while.</figcaption></figure>
 The place is located in a deserted alley near JR Kannai Station, which is home to Yokohama&#8217;s largest entertainment district.
 Around 9:00 p.m., I came across a foreign woman standing on the street, wearing a mini-skirt above her knees, and she suddenly leaned in close to me. She was 27 years old and from Bangkok, Thailand.
 Won&#8217;t you play with me, brother?　I&#8217;ll give you 15,000 yen for a dirty, dirty, and all the way up to the end. Let&#8217;s do something nice in my room right there.
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 The reporter, amazed, left the scene and, watching from a distance, saw that May had already taken the arm of the next man. They disappeared into an apartment about 10 meters from there. Less than half an hour later, May came outside and caught another man, and they went into the apartment building mentioned earlier.
 The increase in the number of &#8220;tachinbo,&#8221; or standing prostitutes who engage in illegal prostitution in places such as Okubo Park in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and Umeda&#8217;s Usagano-cho in Osaka, has become a social problem.
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 Since last year, arrests have been made one after another in various areas, and the number of women standing on the streets has been visibly decreasing.
 Here in the Kannai area, five male prostitutes in their 20s to 50s, nationals of Thailand, the Philippines, and Peru, were arrested for violating Kanagawa Prefecture&#8217;s nuisance prevention ordinance during a busting operation from May to September last year, and the area was almost completely destroyed at the end of the year due to this.
 However, only about three months later, the prostitutes returned to the area.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" They engage in sexual acts wherever they go..."></div>
The area where the largest number of stand-ups were seen was Wakaba-cho, located about a 10-minute walk from Kannai Station. The owner of a local store is indignant.
 Last spring, there were at least 30 of them standing around. I cried repeatedly to the police, asking them to do something about it, and it wasn&#8217;t until last summer that they finally did something. There were some arrests and things quieted down for a while, but recently they have started showing up again.
 We, the local residents, are particularly upset about the fact that sex acts are being performed in nearby parking lots and buildings. This area is close to Koganecho, which used to be a blue-light district, and has long been a gathering place for women looking for prostitution, but the number of male prostitutes has increased as well. It&#8217;s really chaotic.
 In Wakaba-machi and the neighboring Sueyoshimachi area, Thai restaurants and massage parlors are concentrated, and a Thai community has formed. When we spoke to a Thai restaurant, we heard the following complaint: &#8220;A Thai woman who had just finished her meal told me that her customers were not satisfied with the food.
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 When a Thai female customer was about to leave the restaurant after finishing her meal, a Japanese man persistently approached her. He seemed to think she was a prostitute, and the customer was really annoyed. He was beyond angry and looked sad.&#8221;
 One weekend in March. When I visited Wakaba-cho, three foreign women were already standing in front of a coin-operated parking lot, talking to men on the street. When I entered a dimly lit alley across one street, I saw a person standing over 170 cm tall in a mini-skirt.
 Perhaps wary, she passed by the reporter several times before saying in a thick voice, &#8220;Wanna play?&#8221; She grabbed my arm and asked me if I wanted to play. The &#8220;male prostitute,&#8221; who introduced himself as &#8220;Som&#8221; and said he was from Thailand, spoke in Thai with a smartphone in his hand, saying, &#8220;At first I thought your brother was a policeman.
 At first I thought he was a policeman. We are on a short stay and there is an apartment nearby. I&#8217;m not busy today, so I&#8217;ll give you 5,000 yen for the service.
 When the reporter revealed his identity and asked him if he was not afraid of arrest, he continued.
 If we get arrested, we&#8217;ll just go back to our country.&#8221;
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 According to neighbors, the district has been strengthening crime prevention by patrolling the area, but this has not been a deterrent. A man who used to work as a tout in Fukutomi-machi in the same Kannai area and is well versed in the situation of street vendors said, &#8220;Wakaba-machi is the most popular area in Kannai.
 There are several spots for tachinbo in the Kannai area, including Wakaba-machi, Sueyoshimachi, Akebono-cho, Fukutomi-machi, and Isesagicho,&#8221; he said. But with the increase in arrests, they are now concentrated in the Wakaba-cho area. These days you can even see young Japanese women there.
 The illegal prostitution in Kannai is a repetitive weasel game of arrests and reopenings. Residents sigh deeply as they watch the situation unfold.
<figure id="attachment_366812" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-366812" style="width: 2359px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="d492b60b"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/04/4883b392e63fdb23931b03ffe3df352c.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-366812" class="wp-caption-text"> Mei catches a male customer. After this, they disappeared together into a nearby apartment.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_366813" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-366813" style="width: 1384px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="ff73e9c9"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/04/23959d645179592dba92343039252ab8.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-366813" class="wp-caption-text"> Mei waits for a customer with her phone in hand. It was cold that night, so she was wearing a down coat even though it was early spring.</figcaption></figure>
 From the April 5 and 12, 2024 issue of FRIDAY

 Toshikatsu Tanaka

 The increase in the number of "tachinbo," or standing prostitutes who engage in illegal prostitution, has become a social problem in areas such as Okubo Park in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and Usagano-cho in Umeda, Osaka. In the Kannai area of Yokohama, the number of "tachinbo" has been on the rise again, although it had been decreasing due to last year's busting operation.

Yokohama, Kannai: Sneaking into a Deep Spot Where Weasels Continue to Weasel and Weasel, and the Frontline of &#8220;Stand-up Demons&#8221; in Chaos After the Operation to Expel Them.

Yokohama, Kannai: Sneaking into a Deep Spot Where Weasels Continue to Weasel and Weasel, and the Frontline of “Stand-up Demons” in Chaos After the Operation to Expel Them.

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