The Osaka Education Committee has had a difficult year. First there were allegations of a school teacher being directly responsible for the suicide of a high-school student through harsh corporal punishment; then came the uproar over teachers within the education authority who had refused to stand for the Japanese national anthem. Now, the most salacious of scandals to hit the school system: a school teacher who moonlights as a sex-worker.

The woman, who has now resigned from her teaching job as a result of an anonymous e-mail to the education board, began working in the sex industry as a means of repaying her debt. While the story spread quickly online, netizen comments have been strongly sympathetic, emphasising that the woman was taking responsibility for her debt, and had not harmed anyone or burdened tax payers in the process.

From Yahoo! Japan:

Female School Teacher Who Worked in Sex Industry To Repay Debts Suspended For 6 Months, Says Osaka Prefectural Education Committee.

On May 2, the Osaka Prefectural Education Committee announced that a female teacher (29) at a public prefectural high school who had been working in a sex-related trade outside of school hours had been suspended from her post for six months as a punishment. They stated that the teacher had explained “I did it to repay my debts. I thought I would be able to earn a high income over a short period of time, and that I could do it without most people seeing who I was”. The woman resigned voluntarily on the same day. According to the education committee, this is the first case where a teacher had been discovered working in the sex industry and had received punishment.

The committee also stated that the teacher had been working in the sex industry for 105 days, from late October 2012 to early April 2013, and had earned an income of around 1,600,000 yen [approx. $16,454] in that time. In March of this year, an anonymous e-mail came to the attention of the education committee, and the woman was exposed. The teacher had around 2,000,000 yen [approx. $20,548] of credit card loans, and had been working as a “health girl” [women who offer a range of sexual services that does not include sexual intercourse] at a sex shop in Osaka city after work on weekdays and on her days off.

Comments from Yahoo! Japan:

ruk*08*5*006（ruk…）さん:

Commendable — she was only doing it to pay off a loan.

コメントを書く（oih…）さん:

I guess the person who sent the anonymous e-mail went there as a customer, right? Cut her some slack!

iku*****（iku…）さん:

So she’d even sell her body to pay her debt? Isn’t that actually really commendable?

Members of the Osaka education committee, if you’re going to be that strict, then why don’t you bloody well punish those bastard teachers who can’t sing Kimi Ga Yo in unison like that too?

SY0609DAD（sy0…）さん:

That’s a real teacher…

zeh44549（zeh…）さん:

Well, having resigned voluntarily she can work openly in delivery health without any sense of conflict.

あんぱんまん（yop…）さん:

I think she is 100 times better than those wasters who just sit back and live on social security payments. And it must have been tough being a teacher while working in the sex industry.

sug*********（sug…）さん:

I’m a bit dubious about the customer who grassed her up.

gak*i*chinp**_ans*（gak…）さん:

I’d take her over any of those bastards who are living it up on social security money.And those fly-by-nighters who default on their debt.

wik**a*i*（wik…）さん:

They should just leave it, the only things that have been hurt in all this are her own heart and body.

Rather, I think she is a decent person who was just taking responsibility for things herself.

YOKOSUKAKID（yok…）さん:

Oi, leave her alone!!

She’s different from those fucking idiot teachers who do obscene things to children!

石焼陰毛（fgh…）さん:

I think she is just a hard worker, is that so bad?

chi*son*ito（chi…）さん:

Was she found out because she worked with one of her customers?

osa*aj*i*（osa…）さん:

I think that she of all people probably taught with the most care during lessons.

I guess she’s going to be a teacher who really understand how men feel.

Still, there are teachers out there like here.

It’s comforting that a lot of the comments on here are comparatively warm towards her.

ibf*8*6（ibf…）さん:

There would have been no problem with this had she not been a public servant. There are people around who default on their debt payments.

There are people who spend their welfare payments on gambling.

I wonder if it’s only me who thinks she’s more decent than them just for trying to pay back the money properly?

静かなまぼろし（hir…）さん:

If it was me who’d found her out, rather than grassing her up I’d have her do me!

godaime1020（yon…）さん:

Voluntary resignation→ get money for resigning→ pay back debt!!

Isn’t this a good thing in a way??

But I guess she must have done it knowing that public servants aren’t allowed to take second jobs!!

xsajhgjvx78（jso…）さん:

You’d probably learn a lot more from her than from a teacher who are always away with the fairies.

メッシとは友達になりたくない（kyo…）さん:

I guess now she’s a magnificent full-time sex-trade girl(//∀//）

キンタロス（crs…）さん: