Sexual experience among girls on the rise, but abortions decline

Amid a flood of biased information about sex, an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases and increases in sex crimes, the Japan Society of Adolescentology is tackling the problem of teenage sex and how to protect their health.

In a survey about the sexual behavior of young people conducted by the Japanese Association for Sex Education since 1974, Kazuo Katase, a professor at Tohoku Gakuin University, said, "Since the 1990s, girls have been more sexually active, narrowing the gap between men and women."

"This is chiefly because of social influences such as the popularization of the Internet and mobile phones," he said at a recent meeting of the society at Jikei University in Tokyo.

The association has been conducting surveys of 5,000 junior and senior high school and university students across the country every six years, and the most recent survey was conducted in 2005.

The rate of sexual experiences among senior high school and university students has increased from 1974 to 1999, with the rate among boys higher than among girls. But the rate among male university students, which stood at 63% in 1999, declined to 61% in 2005, and the rate among male senior high school students was 27% in both years.

On the other hand, the rate among female university students went up from 51% in 1999 to 61 percent in 2005, and among female senior high school students from 24% to 30%.

The 2005 survey also found that the increased use of cell phone emails has led to more sexual activity.

Yukihiro Murase, a lecturer at Hitotsubashi University, said, "The pattern that boys are active and girls are passive in sexual behavior remains unchanged. The importance is the changes in the consciousness of boys, who are likely to get biased information about sex from adult videos and other sources."

Shoichi Onodera, a professor at Jikei University, reported on the conditions of sexually transmitted diseases and said, "There are many asymptomatic people who do not visit medical institutions."

In a survey of about 5,000 senior high school students, 13% of girls and 7% of boys were infected with asymptomatic Chlamydia.

According to a survey by a research team at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, there were requests such as "I want to check at home," "I don't want my parents to know" and "I want a consultation by mobile phone."

Onodera said, "It is necessary to have medical institutions in each area that young people can easily visit for checkups, and a contact point, where they can consult about checkup methods, including consultations by email."

Meanwhile, the abortion rate among teenagers appears to be decreasing. Since the peak year of 1955, when there were about 1.17 million cases of abortion domestically, abortion has been decreasing.

But abortion among teenagers began to increase sharply in the mid-1990s. In 1995, the rate of abortion among girls aged 15 to 19 was 6.2 per 1,000, but it more than doubled to 13.0 in 2001. However, since 2002 the rate has been decreasing and was 9.6 in 2005.

Kunio Kitamura, director of the Japan Family Planning Association Clinic, and others carried out a survey of about 800 obstetrics and gynecological facilities across the country in January this year, and 72% of them replied that the rate of abortion has decreased among women under 20 years old.

The decrease was attributed to the popularization of emergency contraception, popularly known as the morning-after pill which can be taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse to avoid pregnancy, and the "effects of sex education."

Kitamura said, "To decrease the rate of overall abortion not limited to teenagers, the popularization of low-dose birth control pills, or oral contraceptives, and emergency contraception is necessary." (Kyodo News)

15,000 child porn DVDs confiscated in Sendai

Miyagi prefectural police on Saturday confiscated about 15,000 child pornographic DVDs in Sendai. The DVDs were seized from a mansion in what officials believe to be the single largest DVD seizure from one location. Three men were arrested in Sendai on suspicion of selling 44 child porno DVDs to two men in Aichi in December for 20,500 yen.

The three suspects have allegedly been selling child porno DVDs online since August 2005, netting more than 100 million yen, police say.

Publisher fined Y1.5 mil over obscene comic

The Supreme Court ordered a comic book publisher to pay a fine of 1.5 million yen for distributing obscene comic books containing sexually explicit scenes, upholding a lower court ruling, legal sources said Friday. The top court dismissed an appeal by Motonori Kishi, 58, president of publisher Shobunkan Corp.

The district court had sentenced Kishi to one year in prison, suspended for three years, saying, "We cannot overlook the fact that the defendant brought about a harmful influence on sexual morality" by distributing the comic. According to court rulings, Kishi distributed about 20,000 copies of the "Misshitsu" (Honey Room) comic book containing graphic sexual scenes to 16 companies in April 2002.

Foreign intern sues over alleged sex assaults

A foreign woman who visited Japan to take part in a program to acquire farming skills filed suit with the Tokyo District Court on Monday, saying she was given only menial assignments at her host company and repeatedly sexually assaulted by an executive.

The woman is seeking a total of 37 million yen from several parties, including the executive and the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization, under whose internship program she came to Japan in November 2004.

The woman, 35, came to the country to acquire farm techniques and was subsequently sent to a construction company in eastern Japan as a technical intern through a sales cooperative of farm products, her primary host, according to the suit. Her lawyers asked to withhold her name and nationality.

After eight days of language training, however, the woman received no further training and was only assigned household work at the company executive's home, cleaning at the company and other menial jobs, the suit claims.

The woman's passport and bank account book were taken away from her, her wages were withheld, and she was given two days off a month — sometimes even none — the suit says.

The woman was forced to live alone at a house owned by the executive and subjected to sexual assaults by the executive, who had kept the key to the premises, over 60 times between March last year and June this year, according to the suit.

The woman finally ran away and was sheltered by the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau in July.

The woman has argued that the firm and the sales cooperative used the system in a legal loophole by using it as a cover for abusing workers at substandard wages.

"I had hopes that I could study and work, but only the irremediable pain has remained. I made a mistake by coming to Japan," she said.

The training organization said it cannot comment on the case because it will become a litigious matter.