The Rise of Foreign Street Prostitutes and the Roots of Enjo-kōsai in Okubo Park

“Modern History of Street Prostitutes,” introduced by sex industry journalist Akira Ikoma, covers the history of street prostitutes from the Edo period to the present day. The fourth installment discusses the foreign street prostitutes during the late Showa to Heisei period. This is the second part of the series. This is Part 2.

[Part 1] Foreign street girls emerging in the Heisei era, exposing their chest and thighs on the streets.

The street prostitution situation in Osaka during the Heisei era

During the Heisei era, street prostitution was rampant not only in Tokyo but also in regional cities.

From the 1990s to the 2000s, in Osaka’s Tennoji area, streetwalkers from Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea, and China, were common. They stood along the shopping street near Tennoji Station and the sidewalk leading to the love hotel district on the opposite side. Customers would sometimes pick up these women and take them to the love hotels. When a police car appeared, the women would disappear, only to return once the coast was clear. This cat-and-mouse game with the authorities continued without any significant reduction. Some women were over 60 years old in the Tennoji Station area.

In Osaka, street prostitution had stubbornly persisted as a culture that had been around for a long time. Many elderly homeless women worked as streetwalkers to earn money for their daily meals. These women could be found not only around train stations but also in parks. According to local regulars, the streetwalkers in Osaka would follow a subtle eye contact signal to accompany customers to hotels, which helped maintain a sense of discretion.

In the entertainment districts of Umeda in Osaka, blonde Russian street walkers could be found. It was said that a threesome could be arranged for 20,000 yen. Additionally, the “Fountain Plaza” in the underground shopping area “Whity Umeda” was known as a meeting place for women engaged in compensated dating, with many young Japanese women in their early 20s.

In Osaka, streetwalkers were also present in Nipponbashi and Shinsekai. In the love hotel district around Nipponbashi, many Korean women were seen. There were also Taiwanese transgender women and South American women, but there were almost no Japanese women. Near the Tsutenkaku tower in Shinsekai, numerous love hotels stood, and Japanese mature women would emerge after sunset. Some mother-daughter streetwalkers were available for threesome encounters. Additionally, streetwalkers were found in the love hotel district around Taniyako.

Even in Nagoya and Yokohama

Along Horikawa River in Nagoya’s Nayabashi, lined with love hotels, many foreign women could be seen around 2003 (Heisei 15). The sight was so common it could be called a weekend Nagoya specialty, with a melting pot of Asian, white, and a few Black women. Later, thorough crackdowns by the authorities nearly wiped them out, but white women began appearing again from Nayabashi to Osu Kannon. It was a shame that, with few streetlights, their faces couldn’t be clearly seen. There were also transgender women, and among Japanese women, most were middle-aged.

Before Expo 2005 Aichi (Love the Earth Expo) in 2005 (Heisei 17), there was a large-scale crackdown, but within about five years, they had started to resurface. Reportedly, near the entrance of Bic Camera by Nagoya Station’s west exit, amateur housewives working part-time as streetwalkers would roam while pushing bicycles, searching for customers.

Streetwalkers were also present in Yokohama. In the early 2000s, every weekend saw a large number of Asian women — from Thailand, Korea, and China — gathered in Isezakicho, while South American women from Colombia, Venezuela, and others would appear in Sueyoshicho. A small number of Japanese women also showed up. It was said that women with unsavory backgrounds, who couldn’t work in the brothels of Koganecho’s “chonnoma” (small rooms for sex work), turned to streetwalking. The blonde-haired South American women were cheerful, with some offering massages after the encounter. The sight of blonde beauties standing along the nighttime banks of the Ooka River carried both a mysterious and romantic atmosphere.

In addition, middle-aged Japanese streetwalkers could be found across Japan — in Susukino, Sapporo; Shijo Kawaramachi, Kyoto; and Hakata, Fukuoka, among other places. In Fukuhara, Kobe’s soapland district, after midnight, women who worked in Kansai’s adult establishments would gather on the streets. Their services were said to be especially indulgent.

An Unusual Shift Beginning to Unfold in Shinjuku Kabukicho

Around Tokyo’s Shinjuku Kabukicho, the area near the Hygeia Building adjacent to Okubo Park had already become known as one of the city’s leading streetwalking spots by the mid-Heisei era. As one strolled along the narrow, dimly lit streets between the Hygeia Building and clusters of love hotels, alluring women in miniskirts would beckon with sultry, sidelong glances. Mature Asian women appeared, as did transgender individuals.

Among them were also Japanese women in their twenties. These were casual street walkers who worked irregularly — only when they had free time or ran out of money. They preferred this over compensated dating sites, which felt unsafe due to the anonymity, and over brothels, which imposed fixed working hours. They weren’t professional prostitutes but amateurs wanting to earn on their own terms, a kind of new breed of streetwalker. I myself was once approached at the Hygeia Building’s front entrance. A perfectly ordinary young Japanese woman, seated casually, muttered, “Hey big brother, wanna hang out?” — and I was taken aback.

By around 2012 (Heisei 24), underage girls also began appearing around Hygeia. The going rate was around 20,000 yen, and reportedly, there were even girls as young as 13. Behind this was the tightening of regulations on online dating sites, which ironically drove prostitution back onto the streets. Most of the money these girls earned was spent on clothes and entertainment. By around 2014 (Heisei 26), so-called ordinary women looking to make some pocket money became even more noticeable. Nurses and cabaret club hostesses took to the streets after the professional streetwalkers who’d been working daily were swept up in a crackdown the previous year.

These women weren’t driven by poverty or the need to support their families. Their goal was to earn money for shopping and having fun. The belief that young women become streetwalkers because they’re poor was something of an urban legend. Nor was it primarily to funnel money to hosts, as malicious host club culture hadn’t yet become the major social issue it would later become.

 

Within the sex industry, it was considered the bottom tier

Among the streetwalkers of the Heisei era, one particularly exceptional case that drew public attention was the 1997 (Heisei 9) “TEPCO OL Murder Case.” A 39-year-old elite female employee of Tokyo Electric Power Company was working as a street prostitute in the love hotel district of Maruyamacho, Shibuya, Tokyo — and was murdered by an unknown assailant. After work, she initially worked at a call-girl service for married and middle-aged women. However, frustrated by a lack of clients, she changed shops several times and eventually began freelance streetwalking. The existence of a woman who lived a double life as both a model employee and a street prostitute caused a major stir in society.

During the Heisei period, the majority of streetwalkers were foreign women who came to Japan for temporary work. Japanese women were also present, but they were few in number and, outside of Shinjuku and Umeda, they were generally older and not especially attractive, leaving little impression.

The first half of the Heisei era was a prosperous time for Japan’s adult entertainment industry — a money-making period for sex workers. Yet even in such a climate, there were women who struggled to attract customers in mainstream establishments like soaplands, health salons, and escort services. Some were disqualified from employment due to age, nationality, or other circumstances. These women drifted into illegal underground services like chonnoma (tiny, hidden brothels) and pick-up snack bars, with street prostitution becoming the final refuge. In this sense, streetwalking functioned as a catch basin for those unable to earn in other branches of the sex industry. That’s why in the 1990s, cases like the “TEPCO OL Murder” — where an ordinary woman took to the streets — were seen as highly unusual.

What struck me most while reporting on these areas was how cheerful the foreign streetwalkers of this era were. One rarely sensed any guilt, darkness, or poverty in the foreign women selling sex on the streets at night. South American women, in particular, were upbeat and seemed to genuinely enjoy their time in an affluent country like Japan. The appearance of foreign streetwalkers was a phenomenon made possible precisely because Japan had become a wealthy nation since the postwar era of the so-called panpan girls (street prostitutes in the immediate aftermath of WWII). Seen from today’s completely reversed circumstances, it feels almost like a fairy tale from a distant, bygone world.

In the next installment, I’ll explain how, after the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of young Japanese streetwalkers began to increase again in the Reiwa era.