Remember freshman year of high school when you went to homecoming with that one boy you eventually ended up dating? Oh, good times, good times. Most teens start dating in high school. Girl likes boy; boy likes girl. Then they enter the “talking” stage. This stage is when a boy and a girl both know they feel the same way about each other and are basically a couple, but they do not have a label for their relationship status. It may take some time before they decide to become an official couple. That is high school dating in the United States.
In Japan, high school dating is defined differently. There are a group of Japanese girls in their teens who involve themselves with older men. By older men, I mean men already in their 40s and 50s. Money, of course, plays a part. Welcome to the “high school dating” business in Japan, or also known as child prostitution.
These young girls are often vulnerable. They are convinced that working in this business is equivalent to working at a fast-food restaurant in terms of how "easy" it is. That is what adults tell them to persuade them into taking the job. Girls agree to do this kind of work because, other than earning money, they get the acceptance and attention they long for as well.
Rather than helping the girls get out of the business and have better lives, they are blamed for the choices they made. People look down on them and believe they are the problem, not the victims. That is the sad truth. And, the men who take advantage of these girls easily get away for what they do.
There has been little done to stop the business where the girls are the only ones being disciplined. They are prohibited from working even though a lot of them still continue to do so anyway. As I've mentioned previously, men do not get any sort of punishment since the girls are considered to be in the wrong.
However, there are individuals working to save these girls. For example, Yumeno Nito is part of an organization that helps them. His group has helped girls who have been taken advantage of as well as girls with mental or learning problems. Jun Tachibana is also another individual doing something about this problem and is a part of a nonprofit organization called Bond Project. He and his group go out on the streets to find girls who could be in trouble.
We are used to our concept of high school dating. A boy and a girl. The same age. Hanging out and just being kids. If a girl dates a guy who is a year or two older, it may be considered as "cool." Meanwhile, there are teen girls in Japan who date older men in their 40s and 50s for a living. Not enough people are aware of this "high school dating" business. These girls are being exploited because of their vulnerability. They need help. They need to be saved before more young girls are lured into doing this kind of work.
