<figure id="attachment_464161" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-464161" style="width: 2737px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="c0cc1793"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/04/b303c14ed8eeb747350b2ccaf53c68e6.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-464161" class="wp-caption-text">The first trial of Fujiwara&#8217;s case was held at the Kumagaya Branch of the Saitama District Court, and he appealed against the judgment issued in April last year.</figcaption></figure>
<h3><span class="strongInContent"> The appeal is dismissed.</span></h3>
<p> Ryo Fujiwara, 28, a former child care worker, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for forcible sexual intercourse and indecent assault against four girls aged 2 to 3 at his workplace, and for violating the Child Pornography Law against six girls aged 2 to 5, including these four. On March 30, the Tokyo High Court handed down the verdict to Ryo Fujiwara, who had appealed the decision.</p>
<p> Fujiwara entered the court wearing a black top and bottom sweatshirt, a close-cropped headscarf, and black-rimmed glasses. Even after sitting in the defendant&#8217;s seat, he looked around restlessly and repeatedly glanced at the audience. Then, when Chief Judge Masaki Tamura said, <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;The appeal is dismissed</span>,&#8221; he looked up to the heavens in disappointment.</p>
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<p> Fujiwara, who had repeatedly committed indecent acts with 25 girls and violated the Child Pornography Law while visiting three child welfare facilities across Japan, was first arrested in December 2011.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> On December 7, a joint investigation team of the Saitama Prefectural Police Juvenile Division and the Gyoda Police Station arrested Fujiwara, a former child care worker from Osaka Prefecture, on suspicion of indecent assault of girls at an infant home in Saitama Prefecture.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The arrest was triggered when an employee of a volunteer organization, who was conducting cyber patrol on SNS, found a post that said &#8220;I have a job at an infant care center in Saitama,&#8221; which was accompanied by child pornography images, and reported to the prefectural police that &#8220;there is an account that posts images of girls being sexually abused. The prefectural police identified Fujiwara from the contents of the posts and his history.</span></p>
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<p> Fujiwara, who obtained a qualification as a nursery teacher at a university in the Kansai region, began working at an infant care center in Saitama Prefecture in April 2009. After working at three different child welfare facilities, she was arrested and had approximately 1,200 indecent images of more than 20 girls stored on her smartphone and computer. A former reporter from the social affairs department continued, &#8220;He was arrested on July 7 for 53 crimes against 25 people.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Arrested seven times for 53 crimes against 25 people."></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">He repeated the act to satisfy his need for approval.&#8221;</span></h3>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The Saitama Prefectural Police analyzed the child pornography videos and images stored by defendant Fujiwara to identify the victims, and repeatedly arrested and prosecuted them.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> On July 10, during his trial at the Kumagaya Branch of the Saitama District Court, which began on February 20, &#8217;24, he was arrested again on suspicion of violating the Child Pornography Prohibition Law. He is suspected of taking and storing indecent images of 17 girls under 5 years old at child welfare facilities in Osaka and Yamagata prefectures. In fact, this is the seventh time he has been arrested.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> In the end, the suspect was charged with 53 cases of indecency against 25 girls and violations of the Child Pornography Law.</span></p>
<p> What was Fujiwara&#8217;s motive for studying at university to become a nursery school teacher when he had sexually harmed so many girls? At the trial, Fujiwara stated, &#8220;I was interested in infant care.</p>
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<p><span class="strongInContent"> I wanted to become a childcare worker because I was interested in infant care and I had a longing for a male childcare worker who was familiar with infant care.</span></p>
<p> He claimed that he did not become a childcare worker because of his sexual preference. On the other hand, while working at an infant care center in Saitama Prefecture, she had been interacting with several accounts on social networking sites that were sexually interested in girls.</p>
<p> When asked what <span class="strongInContent">triggered</span> him to sexually assault the girl, Fujiwara replied, <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;I think it may have been work stress, but I don&#8217;t know for sure.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> When I posted on social networking sites that I had committed such indecent acts with girls, I would receive praise and praise, such as &#8220;I am envious,&#8221; which led to my need for approval. After that, I repeated the act to satisfy my need for approval.&#8221;</span></p>
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<p> Fujiwara denied that <span class="strongInContent">he remembers the</span> act, but an image of himself holding his genitals close to a sleeping girl and writing, &#8220;Reproduction, the best,&#8221; was also found in the photograph.</p>
<p> During his detention, Fujiwara was examined by a doctor and diagnosed as a &#8220;pedophile,&#8221; but he was unaware of this when he first started working at the infant home. When did he begin to feel that he was a &#8220;pedophile&#8221;? At the trial, he stated the following.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Awakening to pedophilia"></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">He said he wanted to contribute to society, but&#8230;</span></h3>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> When I started committing crimes, there was a conversation on social networking sites that said, &#8216;If you work at an orphanage, you can do this kind of thing (indecent acts),&#8217; so I thought I would give it a try. But when I started committing the crimes, I got pleasure from them, and I was awakened to pedophilia, or rather, I started committing the crimes habitually.</span></p>
<p> She then went on to explain why she continued to work as a childcare worker even after becoming aware that she was a pedophile.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> If I couldn&#8217;t stop committing indecent acts, I thought about quitting the childcare business. However, I wanted to be involved in childcare as a profession, not out of sexual desire, so I stayed on the job.</span></p>
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<p> In the end, changing workplaces did not stop his criminal behavior, and he was repeatedly re-arrested. As a result, at the first trial on April 15, &#8217;25, he was sentenced to <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;8 years in prison (12 years is the suggested sentence)&#8221; on</span> the <span class="strongInContent">grounds that &#8220;the negative impact on the victim, who was very immature and did not even understand the meaning of the act, was immeasurable</span>,&#8221; and this time the appeal was also dismissed.</p>
<p> At the High Court, the defense argued that some of the images of girls Fujiwara had taken and stored did not constitute child pornography because <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;only those with specific characteristics, such as the defendant, are stimulated sexually by images of girls between the ages of 2 and 5 touching their pubic areas or having their pubic areas touched by others, and not by images that stimulate the sexual desires of the general public.</span> Some of the images of the girls taken and stored by Fujiwara did not constitute child pornography.</p>
<p> However, Judge Tamura rejected all of the defense&#8217;s arguments, stating that <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;it is</span><span class="strongInContent">clear that the general public who sees these images would recognize that they are pictures of children taken to stimulate sexual desire or to sexually arouse them</span>,&#8221; and <span class="strongInContent">that &#8220;there is no error in the assessment of the first instance court decision.</span> The court then ruled that <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;it cannot be said that the sentence of the first trial was too heavy and unjust.</span></p>
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<p> According to the indictment read by the prosecutor, when Fujiwara sexually assaulted the girl, she <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;frowned and moaned, trying to convey her disgust even at a young age</span>.</p>
<p> Fujiwara did not care, and continued to commit the crimes to satisfy his own sexual desires and need for approval. What kind of &#8220;male childcare worker with expertise in infant care&#8221; did he once aspire to be?</p>
<p> During his detention, he studied to become a financial planner, and after returning to society, he <span class="strongInContent">stated that he would like to contribute to society in a way that does not involve children,</span> but it seems that his contribution to society is still some way off.</p>

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 Ryo Nakahira

 On March 30, an appeals court ruled in favor of a former child care worker accused of indecency with young children and violating the Child Pornography Law. What was the surprising motive that led the defendant, who is alleged to have sexually assaulted at least 25 young children, to commit such a string of crimes?

Former childcare worker sexually assaulted 25 children because she was praised as &#8220;enviable&#8221;&#8230; The end of her &#8220;twisted need for approval&#8221;.

Former childcare worker sexually assaulted 25 children because she was praised as “enviable”… The end of her “twisted need for approval”.

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