Anti-prostitution Movement

Japanese: 廃娼運動 - はいしょううんどう

A social movement that seeks to abolish the licensed prostitution system and to rescue and rehabilitate licensed prostitutes from the standpoint of protecting women's human rights. Japan's licensed prostitution system (official recognition of prostitution, congregation of prostitutes, area restrictions) began in earnest with the permission to open the Edo Yoshiwara pleasure quarters in the early Edo period. In 1872 (Meiji 5), following the Maria Luz incident, the Meiji government issued the so-called "Prostitute Emancipation Edict," which meant that the previous licensed prostitution system was technically unviable. However, the following March, regulations for mold and poison inspection were promulgated, followed by regulations for the rented house life and regulations for the prostitute life in December, which made the new licensed prostitution system (rented house system) where prostitutes prostituted of their "free will" and strengthened it. In modern Japan, where capitalism grew rapidly, rural poverty gave rise to the "Sorrowful History of Factory Girls," but at the same time it also gave rise to a large number of prostitutes. After the Sino-Japanese War, there were approximately 500 brothels, 10,000 rented houses, and 50,000 prostitutes until Japan's defeat in the Asia-Pacific War.

[Takizawa Tamio]

Meiji and Taisho Periods

In response to this, following Tsuda Mamichi's proposal to ban human trafficking in 1869, calls for the abolition of prostitution arose, and in 1975 Saitama Prefecture carried out its abolition (the following year, with the merger with Kumagaya Prefecture, the two brothels of Honjo and Fukaya within the former Kumagaya Prefecture remained in place, and Saitama Prefecture became a prefecture that had not abolished prostitution). In 1980, prefectural assembly members in Gunma Prefecture began petitioning to abolish prostitution, and in 1982 the prefectural assembly adopted a proposal to abolish prostitution. After many years of fighting with those in favor of retaining prostitution, the abolition of prostitution was carried out on January 1st 1994 (although in reality it only turned public prostitutes into private prostitutes). Nationwide, the Tokyo Women's Temperance Union was founded in December 1886, led by Yajima Kajiko (reorganized as the Japan Christian Women's Temperance Union in April 1893), and petitioned for monogamy and for the crackdown on overseas prostitutes, known at the time as "karayuki-san" and who travelled in large numbers to Southeast Asia and elsewhere. After one Nagoya prostitute was allowed to quit prostitution freely in 1899 and the following year in 1900 (Meiji 33), a Supreme Court ruling invalidated prostitution contracts and allowed women to quit prostitution freely, the momentum for the freedom to quit prostitution grew, and the Salvation Army, led by American missionaries Morphy and Yamamuro Gunpei, devotedly supported this. Fearing that an assault by the Susaki brothel staff on British Major Deuce, who worked for the Salvation Army and went to rescue prostitutes there, would become a diplomatic issue, the government issued regulations to control prostitutes in October of the same year, setting an age limit of 18 for prostitutes and clarifying the provision for free retirement, but a ruling by the Daishinin in 1902 ordering prostitutes to repay their advance debts made it difficult to free themselves from quitting. When the Yoshiwara brothel burned down in 1902, the Kyofukai launched a campaign against the revival of the brothel, and from within this movement, Shimada Saburo's Kakuseikai, with its journal Kakusei, was founded in the same year.

In the 1910s, movements such as the abolition of the Naniwa brothel in Osaka, opposition to the Yoshiwara Oiran Dochu (oiran road trip) and the establishment of the Tobita brothel in Osaka were developed. The movement spread after many Yoshiwara prostitutes were burned to death in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 (Taisho 12), and soon after, Kubushiro Ochimi and others formed the National Alliance for the Abolition of Public Prostitution, and in 1926, the Kuruwa Seikai and Kyofukai merged to form the Kuruwa Seikai Women's Temperance Association Abolition of Prostitution Federation (initially the Federation). During this time, the Kyofukai and others repeatedly submitted bills to abolish the public prostitution system to the Imperial Diet. The government conditionally ratified the 1920 League of Nations' "International Convention for Women" in 1925, but was reluctant to abolish prostitution, and the house rental operators also held national conferences every year to show off their power.

[Takizawa Tamio]

Early Showa period

In February 1928, the first universal male suffrage was held, and the Abolition of Prostitution League focused on central and local parliamentary movements, and as a result, starting with Saitama in the same year, 14 prefectures, including Akita, Fukushima, Fukui, and Niigata, passed resolutions to abolish prostitution by 1935. During the Showa Depression, the selling of children in Tohoku became a social problem, and in 1931, the International League of Nations' Women and Children Trafficking Investigation Mission came to Japan and issued a report on the state of public prostitution in Japan (the Johnson Report), and in October of the following year, the Buddhist Association passed a resolution to abolish prostitution. During this time, the government and private sector joint organization, the Association for the Prevention of Prostitution (chaired by Daikichirō Tagawa), was formed, and the government also changed its policy to abolish prostitution. In the 59th Diet, a bill to abolish prostitution was enthusiastically discussed, and the Ministry of the Interior also leaned to abolish prostitution, but it did not go ahead and implement it. Meanwhile, belatedly, in the late 1920s, the proletarian women's movement also began to include the abolition of public prostitution in its movement policy. Thus, the momentum to abolish prostitution grew, but at the same time, after the Manchurian Incident in 1931, the abolitionist movement was caught up in the wartime regime, and in 1935 the Abolitionist League was reorganized as the National Purity League and established as a system. The abolitionist movement during the Asia-Pacific War was used to control the people and to carry out the war, and Kuruwa Sei, which continued up to volume 35, issue 1 in January 1945, changed direction to include "Leader Japan and the Problem of Chastity" (Abe Isoo). During this time, the Japanese military forced Korean women and women from occupied territories to work as comfort women in wartime brothels, and many women became victims.

[Takizawa Tamio]

Enactment of the Anti-Prostitution Law

In August 1945 (Showa 20), immediately after Japan's defeat in the Asia-Pacific War, the government placed more importance on dealing with the occupying forces than on abolishing public prostitution, and at the initiative of Minister of State Konoe Fumimaro, established the Special Comfort Houses Association (RAA) for the occupying forces and opened comfort stations. The occupying forces presented a memorandum banning public prostitution in January of the following year, 1946, and around the same time issued notices from the Director General of the Security Department and Director General of the Police Bureau of the Ministry of the Interior abolishing the public prostitution system. However, comfort women who catered to the occupying forces (street prostitutes called panpan), comfort women operating in designated areas (red line districts), and private prostitutes outside of those areas (blue line districts) were tolerated, and by 1957 there were 1,634 organized prostitution districts, 35,283 operators, and a total of 142,000 comfort women, employees, and prostitutes (according to a survey by the Women's and Young People's Bureau of the Ministry of Labor). In 1951, the Council Against the Reinstatement of the Public Prostitution System was formed, collecting one million signatures, and succeeded in passing Potsdam Decree No. 9, "Imperial Ordinance on the Punishment of Those Who Force Women to Engage in Prostitution," into domestic law the following year. From 1953 to 1954, female Diet members including Ichikawa Fusae submitted a "Bill on the Punishment of Prostitution, etc." to the Diet, but it was rejected. In March 1956, the government established the Prostitution Countermeasures Council and began drafting legislation, and after a fierce battle with operators, the Prostitution Prevention Law was promulgated on May 24 of the same year, but prostitution in its various forms continued to exist even after that.

[Takizawa Tamio]

From "prostitution" to "prostitution"

From around the 1980s, the word "prostitution" began to be written as "traffic prostitution" to emphasize the responsibility of the buyer, and tourist prostitution in Korea and Southeast Asia and the nightlife work of Asian women who entered the country on tourist visas became social issues. In the 1990s, the issue of postwar compensation, which had been forgotten, attracted social attention and became an international issue, triggered by a lawsuit filed by former Korean comfort women against the Japanese government. Furthermore, the advancement of women into society was further promoted, which led to the awakening of feminist consciousness and changes in sexual customs, as symbolized by the emergence of "paid" dating for junior and senior high school girls and host clubs, and the debate over the definition of prostitution itself became more active. However, the prostitution of rural women who migrate to work and the prostitution of children in Southeast Asian countries are causing serious social problems in local communities, such as AIDS infection. The activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Women's Home HELP (an emergency shelter for women run by the Japan Christian Women's Temperance Union) are also becoming networked, but the issue of liberating women and children from poverty and human rights, which was originally raised by the anti-prostitution movement, remains.

[Takizawa Tamio]

"Compilation of Documents on Women's Issues in Japan, Vol. 1: Human Rights," edited by Ichikawa Fusae (1978, Domesu Publishing)" ▽ "Reprint of "Kuruwa-Kureha," edited by the Kuruwa-Kureha Association (1980, Fuji Publishing)" ▽ " Reprint of "Sad Tales of Prostitute Liberation," written by Okino Iwasaburo (1982, Chuokoron-Shinsha)" ▽ "Reprint of "Social Kuruwa-Kureha Theory," written by Yamamuro Gunpei (1982, Chuokoron-Shinsha)" ▽ "Revised Edition of "Mary's Hymn," written by Shirota Suzuko (1982, Kanita Publishing Department)" ▽ "The Abolition of Prostitution Movement: How Were the Women of the Kuruwa-Kureha Liberation?" written by Takemura Tamio (1982, Chuokoron-Shinsha)" ▽ "The Social History of Prostitution," written by Yoshimi Shuko (1984, Yuzankaku)" ▽ "Collection of Documents on Military Comfort Women," edited by Yoshimi Yoshiaki (1992, Otsuki Shoten)" ▽ "AIDS and Prostitution Report - Seeking Hope and Solidarity" by Tsunetsugu Munakata (1993, Nippon Hyoronsha)" ▽ "Women, Violence and Human Rights" edited by Kazuko Watanabe (1994, Gakuyo Shobo) ▽ "Comfort Women" by Yoshiaki Yoshimi (1995, Iwanami Shoten)" ▽ "Women Creating Asia" by Yayori Matsui (1996, Iwanami Shoten)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

Japanese:

女性の人権擁護の立場からの、公娼制度廃止、公娼の救済・更生を目ざす社会運動。わが国の公娼制度（売春の公認、集娼、地域制限）は、江戸時代初期の江戸吉原遊廓(よしわらゆうかく)の開設許可によって本格的に始まった。明治政府は1872年（明治5）のマリア・ルーズ号事件を機に、いわゆる「娼妓(しょうぎ)解放令」を出し、従来の公娼制度は形式上は立ち行かなくなった。けれども、翌年3月には黴毒(ばいどく)検査規則が公布され、さらに12月の貸座敷渡世(とせい)規則、娼妓渡世規則の公布によって、娼妓の「自由意志」の売春による新たな公娼制度（貸座敷制度）が公然化し、強化された。資本主義が急速に成長した近代日本における農村の貧困は、『女工哀史』を生むとともに、他方で多数の娼妓を生み出し、日清(にっしん)戦争以後は約500か所の遊廓、1万軒の貸座敷、5万人の娼妓がアジア太平洋戦争の敗戦まで存在した。

［滝澤民夫］

明治・大正期

これに対し、1869年の津田真道(つだまみち)の人身売買禁止建議以来、廃娼論もおこり、75年には埼玉県が廃娼を断行（翌年の熊谷(くまがや)県合併で、旧熊谷県内の本庄(ほんじょう)、深谷の2遊廓がそのまま存続し、埼玉県は非廃娼県に）、80年からは群馬県で県会議員の廃娼請願が始まり82年に県会が廃娼建議を採択、存娼派との長年の攻防を経て94年1月1日より廃娼を断行した（実体は公娼の私娼化にとどまった）。全国的には1886年12月に矢島楫子(やじまかじこ)を中心に東京婦人矯風会(きょうふうかい)が発足（1893年4月日本キリスト教婦人矯風会に改組）、一夫一婦制の建白や、当時「からゆきさん」とよばれ、東南アジアを中心に多数渡航していた「在外売淫(ばいいん)婦」の取締りを請願した。1899年の名古屋の一娼妓の自由廃業や翌1900年（明治33）の大審院判決によって娼妓売買契約の無効、廃業の自由が認められると、自由廃業の気運が高まり、アメリカ人宣教師モルフィや山室軍平(やまむろぐんぺい)の救世軍が献身的にこれを支援した。洲崎(すさき)遊廓の娼妓救助に向かった救世軍イギリス人少佐デュースへの遊廓側による暴行事件の外交問題化を恐れたこともあって、政府は同年10月娼妓取締規則を公布、娼妓の年齢制限を18歳とし、自由廃業規定を明文化したが、02年の大審院の前借金返済命令判決で自由廃業は困難になった。11年吉原遊廓が全焼すると矯風会は吉原遊廓再興反対運動をおこし、その運動のなかから、機関誌『廓清(かくせい)』をもつ島田三郎の廓清会も同年発足した。

　1910年代に入ると、大阪難波(なにわ)遊廓廃止、吉原花魁(おいらん)道中反対、大阪飛田(とびた)遊廓設置反対などの運動が展開された。1923年（大正12）の関東大震災で吉原の娼妓多数が焼死したことを機に運動は燃え広がり、直後に久布白落実(くぶしろおちみ)らが全国公娼廃止期成同盟会を結成、26年には廓清会と矯風会が合同し廓清会婦人矯風会廃娼連盟（当初は同連合）を結成した。この間、矯風会などが公娼制度廃止法案を帝国議会に再三提出。政府は1920年の国際連盟の「婦人ニ関スル国際条約」を、25年に条件付きで批准したが、廃娼には消極的で、貸座敷業者も毎年全国大会を開いて勢力を誇示していた。

［滝澤民夫］

昭和初期

1928年（昭和3）2月に初の男子普通選挙が実施され、廃娼連盟は中央・地方の議会運動を重視した活動を展開し、その結果、同年の埼玉をはじめとして、35年までに秋田、福島、福井、新潟など14県が廃娼を決議するに至った。昭和恐慌下で東北の子供の身売りが社会問題化するなかで、1931年に来日した国際連盟の女性児童売買実情調査団は日本の公娼の実態報告（ジョンソン報告）を出し、翌32年10月には仏教会が廃娼決議を行った。この間、官民合同の売笑禍防止協会（委員長田川大吉郎）が組織され、政府も廃娼へと方針を転換、第59議会では廃娼法案が熱心に討議され、内務省も廃娼断行に傾いたが、実施には至らなかった。一方、遅ればせながら、1920年代後半にはプロレタリア女性運動でも公娼廃止を運動方針に加えるようになった。こうして廃娼気運は高まったが、同時に、1931年の満州事変後は廃娼運動も戦時体制に巻き込まれてゆき、35年、廃娼連盟は国民純潔同盟へと改組され、体制化していった。アジア太平洋戦争中の廃娼運動は国民統制のうえで戦争遂行に利用され、45年1月の35巻1号まで続く『廓清』も、「指導者日本と貞潔問題」（安部磯雄(あべいそお)）といった方向に変質した。この間、日本軍は朝鮮人女性や占領地の女性を従軍慰安婦として戦地の慰安所で強制的に就業させ、多くの女性が犠牲となった。

［滝澤民夫］

売春防止法の成立

アジア太平洋戦争敗戦直後の1945年（昭和20）8月、政府は公娼廃止よりも占領軍対策を重視して、国務大臣近衛文麿(このえふみまろ)の主唱で、占領軍用に特殊慰安施設協会（RAA）を設立し慰安所を開設。占領軍は翌46年1月公娼禁止の覚書を提示、前後して公娼制度廃止の内務省保安部長・警保局長通達が出された。しかし占領軍相手の慰安婦（パンパンとよばれる街娼）や指定地区の慰安婦営業（赤線）、地区外の私娼（青線）は許容され、57年には組織売春地区1634か所、業者3万5283人、慰安婦・従業婦・散娼計14万2000人（労働省婦人少年局調べ）に上った。1951年公娼制度復活反対協議会が結成され、100万人の署名を集め、翌年ポツダム政令の勅令9号「婦女に売淫をさせた者等の処罰に関する勅令」の国内法化に成功。53年から54年にかけて市川房枝(ふさえ)ら女性議員を中心に「売春等処罰法案」を国会に提出したが否決。政府は56年3月売春対策審議会を設置して立法化を始め、業者との厳しい対決のなかで同年5月24日売春防止法が公布されたが、その後も形を変えた売春行為が後を絶たなかった。

［滝澤民夫］

「売春」から「売買春」へ

1980年代ごろから、買う側の責任を重視して「売春」は「売買春」と表記されはじめ、韓国、東南アジアなどでの観光売買春や観光ビザ入国のアジア女性の水商売労働などが社会問題化した。90年代に入ると、元朝鮮人従軍慰安婦の日本政府への訴訟をきっかけに、忘れ去られてきた戦後補償問題が社会的関心をよび、国際問題化した。また、女性の社会進出がさらに推進され、フェミニズム意識の覚醒(かくせい)と、女子中学・高校生の「援助」交際やホストクラブの出現に象徴されるような性風俗の変化をもたらし、売春そのものの定義論争も活発化した。しかし、東南アジア諸国における農村女性の出稼ぎ売買春や児童売買春はエイズ感染などの深刻な社会問題を地域社会に引き起こしている。世界保健機関（WHO）や「女性の家HELP」（日本キリスト教婦人矯風会運営の女性の緊急避難施設）などの非政府組織（NGO）の活動もネットワーク化されつつあるが、かつて廃娼運動が提起した貧困と非人権からの女性・児童の解放という課題はなお残されたままである。

［滝澤民夫］

『市川房枝編『日本婦人問題資料集成第1巻　人権』（1978・ドメス出版）』▽『廓清会編『廓清』復刻版（1980・不二出版）』▽『沖野岩三郎著『娼妓解放哀話』復刻版（1982・中央公論社）』▽『山室軍平著『社会廓清論』復刻版（1982・中央公論社）』▽『城田すず子著『マリヤの讃歌』改訂版（1982・かにた出版部）』▽『竹村民郎著『廃娼運動――廓の女性はどう解放されたか』（1982・中央公論社）』▽『吉見周子著『売笑の社会史』（1984・雄山閣）』▽『吉見義明編『従軍慰安婦資料集』（1992・大月書店）』▽『宗像恒次著『エイズと売買春レポート――希望と連帯を求めて』（1993・日本評論社）』▽『渡辺和子編著『女性・暴力・人権』（1994・学陽書房）』▽『吉見義明著『従軍慰安婦』（1995・岩波書店）』▽『松井やより著『女たちがつくるアジア』（1996・岩波書店）』