MyNumber checks spread in Kabukichō as underage girls adopt a new method of age falsification

There are more minors now

There have been large-scale crackdowns on street prostitution in Shinjuku’s Ōkubo Park in the past. However, the reality is that prostitution is still taking place. Many of those involved are minors.

At the House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting on November 11, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated that she had instructed the Minister of Justice to conduct the necessary review regarding a legal amendment that would expand punishment under the Anti-Prostitution Law to include buyers—that is, the men who purchase sex from women. It appears the government will be strengthening measures going forward.

Under the current Anti-Prostitution Law, even if a street prostitute is arrested, the man buying sex is not. Men are only punished when the prostitute is a minor. However, according to one man who buys sex and whom we interviewed around Ōkubo Park, the number of girls who clearly seem to be minors has increased in recent months. “Maybe it was after the four street prostitutes were arrested in July. Since around late August, it feels like there are more minors,” he said, describing what he has seen.

“Minors are now prostituting themselves in areas where there weren’t any streetwalkers before. Until now, the main area was the route from around Ōkubo Park heading toward Kuyakusho-dōri. But there’s another street—closer to Hanamichi-dōri, I guess you could say—around the entrance to the love hotel district on the south side. They’ve started showing up there.

From what I’ve heard, they say things like, ‘I can’t get a part-time job, so I’m here,’ or ‘I can earn way more than a regular part-time job,’ and that’s why they started doing this. It seems they think that if you can earn 100 million yen in two years, then prostitution is worth trying. Some girls also seem to believe that even if they’re too young to work a part-time job legally, they can still make money through prostitution.”

In the case where the four street prostitutes mentioned earlier were arrested, it was reported that one of the suspects had earned 100 million yen through prostitution over two years. This is an amount unthinkable through ordinary work. Influenced by these reports, it seems that more minors seeking quick money are becoming streetwalkers.

Most men who buy sex fear the risk of engaging with minors. To avoid getting into trouble with the police, they say they are extremely careful about checking the girls’ ages. In response, the minor streetwalkers themselves appear to be employing various tactics as well.

Fewer streetwalkers who spend money on hosts

“The best way to confirm someone’s age is to have them show ID. So I ask, ‘Do you have anything that can prove your age?’ but most of the girls say they don’t have anything.

However, recently, more girls have been saying, ‘I have my My Number card.’ But it’s not the actual physical card—just a photo taken with their phone. And the face and date of birth are always slightly blurred, making it hard to be sure it’s really theirs. It’s suspicious stuff,” said the same man as before.

Health insurance cards can also serve as ID, but the reason My Number cards seem to be spreading among them is that places like host clubs and men’s concept cafés have started requiring photo IDs. Since My Number cards can be issued from age 15 and older just like for adults, the fact that they only have photos instead of the real card is already suspicious. Still, if the place has lax management, they can walk in right after finishing prostitution.

According to streetwalkers themselves, minors falsifying their age seems to be done in groups. One woman explained about age falsification:

“I’ve heard of girls secretly taking photos of their older sister’s My Number card or insurance card and using that. ID photos look bad anyway, and most of the men buying sex are middle-aged or older, plus foreigners. Middle-aged men don’t notice if the faces of young girls look even a little different, and they can’t tell anything about makeup. Foreigners are the same—they judge by general impression, so I think that’s why they can be fooled.”

In this prostitution circle, once one girl figures out how to fool a buyer, it spreads quickly. Earlier there was talk of wanting to earn money easily, but why do they need money so badly that they would go as far as falsifying their age? Another streetwalker said it’s because they simply need money.

“In Kabukichō and everywhere else, you need money to have fun now. Even going out to eat with friends—if it’s a restaurant popular on Instagram, it costs 2,000 to 3,000 yen. You can never have enough money.

And I don’t want to live a life of restraint while I’m young. I want to hang out with my friends, and I don’t want to hold back on the things I want. It feels miserable to be the only one working desperately at a part-time job while my friends get a lot of allowance from their parents and buy department-store cosmetics and brand-name clothes.”

This is just a sense I get, but compared to before, there seem to be fewer streetwalkers who blow their money on host clubs. As this woman described, among the newer streetwalkers, more girls seem to want money to live more luxuriously than their friends and to freely enjoy shopping and going out.

With the changing times, the women who streetwalk in Kabukichō—and their motivations—are also changing. However, the structure in which buyers and underage prostitutes try to outsmart each other seems to remain largely unchanged.