Case of a 12-Year-Old Thai Girl “Forced into Sexual Services”: “I Was Deceived”—The Outrageous Excuse of the Business Owner in His 50s

Just like the victim

“I truly believed she was over 18. I was shocked when I heard she was 12. I think I was deceived.”

At a private massage parlor in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, he forced a 12-year-old Thai girl to provide sexual services. On July 17, at the Tokyo District Court, defendant Masayuki Hosono (52, pictured above)—the owner of the parlor who is charged with violations of the Child Welfare Act and other offenses—delivered a baffling self-defense statement.Even when asked about the girl, he showed no change in expression and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone—.

According to the indictment and other documents, the girl arrived in Japan with her mother last June on a short-term tourist visa. She was then taken directly to the massage parlor in question. Without verifying her age, Hosono allegedly assigned her to customers and forced her to perform sexual acts such as masturbation; he also allegedly made her masturbate him under the pretense of “practice.”

“The mother left Japan alone the very next day. The girl, who was left behind and could not speak a word of Japanese, was reportedly forced to serve approximately 70 clients while living at the massage parlor. In August, she was transferred to an adult entertainment establishment in another prefecture, and in September, she sought help from the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau, leading to the discovery of the case.In connection with this case, defendant Punsiripanya Pakapong (39), a Thai national and former manager of the shop responsible for hiring the girl—who has been indicted for violating the same law—has also been arrested.” (Social Affairs Reporter, National Newspaper)

During cross-examination by her defense attorney at the July 17 hearing, defendant Hosono repeatedly gave testimony that made it seem as though she were “a victim caught up in the incident,” surprising those in the gallery. The following is the account of her life that defendant Hosono shared in court.

Defendant Hosono had lived with his father, who worked in the construction industry, his mother, and his older brother—a family of four—but after his parents and brother passed away one after another, he developed depression and his health deteriorated.After hearing from an acquaintance that “improving blood circulation would cure his condition,” he began visiting a Thai massage parlor. There, a Thai therapist invited him to “run the shop together” and further suggested, “I’ll introduce you to someone—why don’t you get married?”During this process, he claims the therapist defrauded him of between 3 million and 4 million yen.

Around that time, the defendant Pakaporn, who was an acquaintance, proposed, “I’ll marry you, so let’s run the shop together,” and they ended up managing the massage parlor together. Although they never actually married, they subsequently opened the shop.

A “Sigh” Heard from the Gallery

However, Defendant Hosono says, “He was kind at first, but (Defendant Pakapoon) gradually changed and started demanding money.”

“Looking back now, I think I was deceived by (Defendant Pakapoon). Pakapoon and the girl’s mother knew each other, and hiring the girl was something I was told about after the fact. I didn’t know she was 12 years old. She had a tattoo on her back, and she would steal the takings and go out drinking every night.”

“Even when I warned her, she’d just give half-hearted responses—she was a careless person—so there were many complaints from customers, and her ratings were terrible,” Defendant Hosono went on to say. Regarding the fact that she had forced the girl to provide sexual services, she even had the nerve to justify it, saying, “We received complaints that her massages were too poor, so we tested her.”Although he had the girl provide sexual services to boost sales, he claimed the shop’s business never improved. Of course, these are merely the defendant’s one-sided statements. Finally, Defendant Hosono reiterated his rebuttal as stated at the beginning,

“I’m sorry for causing a public uproar. I should have verified [the girl’s age] myself,”

. As he uttered these words, a sense of disillusionment filled the courtroom, and sighs escaped from the public gallery.

A criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand, has already sentenced the mother to seven years and six months in prison for crimes including human trafficking. Koichiro Matsui, an attorney at Atom Law Office, offers the following perspective on the future course of the trial:

“If it is established that the girl was made to live inside the establishment, where her daily life was controlled, and she was forced to serve numerous customers over a long period of time, then the very fact that her identification was not verified could be heavily weighed as evidence supporting ‘indirect intent’ (a state in which one acknowledges the possibility of a crime occurring but accepts it nonetheless).Now that the mother’s involvement has been officially recognized in Thailand, it is highly likely that the prosecution will present concrete counterevidence to refute the story put forward by defendant Hosono—that ‘he, too, was deceived.’In upcoming court sessions (during the prosecution’s cross-examination of the defendant), the focus is expected to shift toward clarifying whether age verification was conducted, the credibility of statements regarding the girl’s words and actions, and the true nature of his relationship with the mother and Defendant Pakaporn. The sentencing will vary significantly depending on whether indirect intent is established and to what extent his position of authority as a business operator is weighed.”

How did the reactions from the gallery appear to Defendant Hosono, who spent the entire trial defending himself—even at the expense of disparaging the victimized girl?

From the August 21–28, 2026, combined issue of *FRIDAY*