The U.S. State Department released its annual survey of human rights in nations throughout the world on Thursday, noting some improvements in Japan but also listing an array of problem areas. Among the problems listed are an "unfettered availability of sexually explicit cartoons, comics, and video games, some of which depicted scenes of violent sexual abuse and the rape of children." The reports stated that, according to experts, Japan has "a culture that appears to accept the depiction of child sexual abuse harmed children."

The State Department wrote that Japan has no law restricting access to the sexually explicit materials.

Japan passed a bill in 2014 amending Japan's child pornography laws to outlaw the possession of child pornography. The bill does not criminalize depictions in manga and anime. Police reported a record-high 1,828 child pornography investigations involving 746 child victims in 2014.

Graphic designer Akashi Takahashi was arrested in 2013 and convicted last month for creating and selling realistic computer graphic (CG) images of a naked underage girl.

Tokyo passed its revised Youth Healthy Development Ordinance in 2011. The law expanded the number of manga and anime that could fall under "harmful publications," the legal category of works that must not be sold or rented to people under the age of 18. Erotic material was already restricted before the amendment, but the amended law now also restricts the sales and renting of materials that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government considers "to be excessively disrupting of social order."

Imōto Paradise! 2 was formally restricted under the law while titles like the To Love-Ru -Trouble- Darkness manga and the Yosuga no Sora anime were evaluated but not restricted.

A stricter law to restrict and regulate sexually provocative, "visual depictions" of characters who sound or appear to be younger than 18 years old was presented in 2010 but met resistance from creators and was summarily shelved. Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) attempted to resurrect it and it was reintroduced in earlier drafts of the passed child pornography bill.

The U.S. Department's report also references Japan's "JK Business" (jōshi kōsei, or high school girls) which includes compensating dating with adult men, massage parlors that hire underage girls, and cafes highlighted by its high-school age servers. The State Department brought up the continuing problem with JK Business in last year's report and flagged it as a type of human trafficking, stating that the compensated dates often end in commercial sex.

Other concerns include racial prejudice by police toward Africans and dark-skinned Asian minorities, the practice of law enforcement of selectively editing recorded statements for trial use, poor prison health and mental care, discriminatory employment contracts based on nationality, widespread abuse of persons with disabilities, social discrimination against certain national, ethnic, and racial minorities, and lack of legal protections for LGBTI groups.

Thanks to Christopher Bonds for the news tip.

Source: Alastair Wanklyn at The Japan Times