LOS ANGELES—Though many types of sex industry businesses are legal in Japan, and nearly 32,000 sex businesses are registered with the government, when Japan put together its $1 trillion coronavirus pandemic relief package in April, sex businesses were barred from receiving any cash.
But this week, one escort-service owner filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government, alleging that she and other sex businesses were victims of discrimination, and should have been included in the aid program all along, according to a report by Japan’s Kyodo News Service.
As is the custom in much Japanese news reporting, the name of the sex business owner was not included in the Kyodo report, which identified her only as a woman who operates her business in Japan’s Kansai region — the area south of Tokyo that is home to several major cities, including Kyoto, and Osaka.
The government aid package included stimulus checks sent directly to Japanese residents, but sex workers were initially shut out of that program as well. But the government reversed course in late April and made sex workers eligible for the cash payments after all.
Businesses in the country’s $24 billion sex industry, however, continued to be excluded from a program that offered one-time payments of 2 million yen — or about $19,000 — to small business owners, to help cover expenses during shutdowns due to the pandemic.
While the actual act of accepting money in exchange for sexual intercourse remains outlawed in Japan, numerous sexually oriented businesses are legal, including sex worker “dispatch” businesses — escort services — “love hotels” (which rent rooms by the hour, specifically for sexual activity), and “fashion health” businesses, which are essentially massage parlors also offering patrons oral sex.
Lawyers for the woman now suing the government contend that there was no “reasonable grounds” for the COVID-19 relief program to exclude legal sex businesses, according to Kyodo. The woman said that revenues from her business fell 80 percent in April, and 70 percent in May, compared to 2019.
The lawyers say in the suit, filed in Tokyo District Court, that their client operates her business in compliance with all relevant laws and regulations, and pays all required taxes on the operation.
About 60 percent of Japan’s 31,956 registered legal sex businesses are “dispatch” services, according to the Kyodo report.
Photo By meguraw645 / Pixabay
