RIGHTS-JAPAN: Women Score Victory With Launch of Females-Only Coach

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, May 4 2001 (IPS) - Stickers plastered on the train coach on a city railway line say “women only”, defining the new service which one rail company in Japan launched last month.

Responding to growing complaints by women fed up with groping in Japan’s commuter trains, Keio Teito Electric Railway Co launched the first females-only car in April. Eight trains on the Keio line have set aside a coach for women on the midnight run between 11 p.m. and 12:40 a.m.

Railway officials report the new service is well patronized. “The train is packed each night. Women want to avoid drunken men who can get aggressive,” says Hideaki Watanabe, a spokesman. “Women commuters are now requesting an expansion of the service.”

Women activists say groping is rampant in Japan’s over-packed commuter trains that ferry millions of Japanese from the suburbs and within the cities to work and back.

During the morning and evening rush hour, each train car carries almost 200 people, double or treble its capacity, report Japanese rail authorities.

“Everybody uses the commuter trains to work in the big cities,” points out Kazue Takahashi, of the New Japan Women’s Association, an non- government organisation dealing with women issues. “Women want to able to travel in peace.”

A government survey on the issue taken last year showed that 47 percent of the respondents have experienced rail molestation.

In another survey taken seven years ago by the Organization to Prevent Sexual Violence, a women’s group based in Osaka, many respondents expressed fear and depression after being groped.

Young victims replied they could not trust men after their experience. Some said they had to give up their jobs because they developed an extreme fear of riding trains.

The survey also revealed only two percent of molested women sought justice by taking their molesters to Court. Most of the time, the victims just kept quiet because they were frightened or ashamed. Others noted that their fellow commuters offered no help.

The National Police Agency reports around 1,000 gropers or “chikan” arrested in 2000. This is double the number recorded in 1995 when police began compiling statistics on gropers.

Penalties are usually a 50,000 yen (about 400 U.S. dollars) fine. But activists are fighting for higher penalties and want groping included as a crime listed under sexual violence against women.

“Paying a fine is getting off too easily. We are also against identifying groping as an “act causing public inconvenience” as it is in Japan,” says Yumiko Hayashi of JUST, a women’s group.

Lawyers appearing for victims point out that the new spotlight on “chikan” is the result of more women starting to speak out against the problem.

“It’s not as if groping is a recent phenomenon,” says Yukiko Tsunoda, who has appeared for a victim. “Modern women are not as afraid as the older generation to demand police arrest the offenders,” she says.

The escalation of the problem has also seen unexpected developments. Recently the Japanese media reported seven cases of mistaken male arrests by the police.

Masaru Nagasaki, 48, a company employee, is currently fighting his case in Court. He says he spent 21 days in a detention centre when he was accused for molesting a young woman in 1997.

Nagasaki vehemently declares his innocence. He says his wrongful arrest has caused him and his family severe mental stress, even though his wife and company boss stand by him.

Nagasaki has been offered support by the People’s Aid and Relief Association of Japan, a 50,000-member strong grassroots volunteer group that helps distressed citizens.

Atsushi Tanaka, a Nagasaki supporter, points out the police is arbitrarily arresting men to cover up accusations of doing nothing in the past.

“We support Nagasaki because we want the police to conduct fair investigations,” says Tanaka. Nagasaki has also won the backing of some women’s groups that are lobbying hard for Japanese railways to ease crowding in trains.

The Keio initiative has nudged other transport companies to follow suit. Skymark Airlines Co also announced a special females-only seating section. “Females feel more relaxed sitting next to a woman,” was the explanation given by the company.

Others believe the segregation is a response to concerns by women about having to sit beside drunken men.

Last October Keihin Electric Express Railway Co. introduced women-only buses linking Shingawa, a central Tokyo station, to Hirosaki in northeastern Japan.

A spokesman for Keihin says bookings in this section go faster than regular reservations. The service is popular because women can fix their hair and make-up without bothering about men, he said.

But 29-year-old journalist Junko Maekawa, who rides the train regularly, says the recent boom in female-only service is carrying the issue too far. “Segregation dosen’t help,” she says. “Women must learn to fight back when they meet a ‘chikan’. That’s the only way to deal with the problem.”