To everyone planning a trip to Japan, or already here: Japan is loved around the world for its safety, its culture and its food.
But in certain entertainment districts, especially at night, you need a correct understanding of Japanese law and of what is actually happening on the ground, or you can walk into trouble you never saw coming.
In recent years, the women who stand on the street waiting for customers around Okubo Park in Shinjuku, Tokyo have become a serious social issue in Japan. And right now, the Japanese government is moving toward a historic change in the law: for the first time, penalties would apply to the men who buy.
"I'm on holiday, so a little misbehaviour is fine." "Just talking to her can't be a crime." In Japan as it stands today, that assumption is dangerous. This article covers what is really happening around paid sex in Japan, the background to the reform now under way, and the legal and health risks that every foreign visitor needs to understand.
What Is Actually Happening in Japan's Night Districts
Over the past few years, the number of women standing on the street to wait for customers around Kabukicho and Okubo Park in Shinjuku grew sharply, and the phenomenon was reported by media both inside and outside Japan. On social media and on some video platforms it picked up the unfortunate nickname of a "prostitution mecca," and foreign tourists began showing up purely to gawk.
The picture in 2026 is different from a few years ago, however. After a concentrated police crackdown, the row of women around Okubo Park has thinned out dramatically. That does not mean the problem is solved. Reporting indicates the waiting has simply moved: to the alleys of the hotel district on the east side of the park, to the area around the nightclubs, and onto social media. Because it is now harder to see from the street, the risk of a foreign visitor being drawn in without understanding the situation has arguably gone up, not down.
According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Public Safety Division, 112 women were arrested at the scene around Okubo Park during 2025 on suspicion of violating the Anti-Prostitution Act by waiting for customers. Their average age was 25, the youngest was 16, and 14 were teenagers. The figure was 140 in 2023 and 97 in 2024, so enforcement remains intense and the numbers remain high.
※ Arrest figures are from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Public Safety Division (announced March 16, 2026, covering 2025).
Why did so many women end up on the street? Japan's own social problems are tangled up in it. Young women cornered by huge unpaid bills at predatory host clubs, and women pushed onto the street to cover living costs after a long stretch of economic hardship, have both increased. Many of them are socially and economically vulnerable, and it is not rare for them to be exploited by criminal groups or by unscrupulous middlemen. When a tourist buys them, he is funding that structure of exploitation and taking part in it.
[From the Author] The Woman Who Disappeared From the Night District
Let me share one personal story from someone who has spent a long time in this industry.
As an industry insider, I understand painfully well how dangerous street solicitation is and how badly it can end. At one point I saw a young woman I knew, who used to work at a legal adult venue, standing on the street.
I told her straight away that she should absolutely stop doing something that dangerous. But she could not let go of the money she had been used to when she was earning well at the venue, and she told me she could not give up street work because the cash came fast. It was her own decision about her own life, and I could not hold her back any harder than that.
Not long after, she vanished from the park where she always stood. Whether she got out and returned to an ordinary life, or whether the police arrested her, I will never know.
Every time I remember her, it makes me deeply sad. Putting your body in the hands of a stranger whose identity you do not know is an extremely dangerous act in itself. I do not want to watch any more women wear their own lives down while also carrying the risk of arrest and the risk of a devastating infection.
"Because there are people who buy, women keep standing on the street." That brutal supply and demand is what creates the trap of illegal paid sex that nobody can climb out of.
The Lopsided Structure of Japanese Law, Where the Buyer Walked Away
Here is how the current law works. Japan's Anti-Prostitution Act prohibits both selling and buying sex. But the law contains a contradiction that has been pointed out for decades: there is no provision that directly punishes the male customer who bought sex. (There is one crucial exception. If the other person is under 18, the Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography imposes very heavy criminal penalties.)
Article 5 of the current Anti-Prostitution Act sets a penalty of up to six months' imprisonment or a fine of up to 20,000 yen for acts committed for the purpose of prostitution, such as waiting for customers, soliciting, and following people. The result was that the woman waiting for customers got arrested, while the man who went to that same place, looked the women over, approached one and bought sex did not.
Why is it built this way? According to government statements in the Diet and the view of specialists, when the law was enacted in 1956 the debate weighted "disturbing public morals and harming the public" — that is, preventing prostitution from spreading — more heavily than the personal illegality of the transaction itself, and the penalty provisions were written accordingly. But the situation in which only the vulnerable women who had little choice but to sell were arrested and punished, while the men doing the exploiting walked away, drew fierce criticism, both on human rights grounds and on the grounds that the men coming to buy are the ones disturbing public morals in the first place.
A Turning Point: Solicitation by the Buyer Would Finally Be Punishable
Faced with that criticism and with the worsening street prostitution problem, the Japanese government and the Ministry of Justice have moved to overhaul the law.
At an expert panel convened by the Ministry of Justice on August 24, 2026, a draft report on reforming the Anti-Prostitution Act was presented. Its central point: for the first time, the men who buy would be added to the solicitation offences that until now applied only to the women selling.
The panel agreed that the imbalance in the current law needs to be corrected, and no objection was raised to bringing solicitation by the buyer in a form visible to the public — approaching a woman on the street, for instance — under regulation. The draft also spells out a move toward heavier punishment, including raising the maximum fine. The report is expected to be finalised in September 2026, and on that basis the government is arranging to submit a reform bill to the extraordinary Diet session in the autumn.
※ The content of the panel and the outlook for the bill are from Jiji Press, "Regulation on solicitation by buyers: expert panel presents draft report; Ministry of Justice considers submission to extraordinary Diet session" (August 24, 2026).
It is worth being precise here: the reform is still at the study stage and no bill has been submitted to the Diet. But the direction of travel is clear. If a reform act passes and takes effect, the act of approaching a woman out of curiosity in a Japanese entertainment district and proposing to buy sex could itself become punishable. "I didn't know" will not get you out of it, and you will be pulled into Japanese criminal procedure.
Raids on Venues, and the Serious Legal Risk Foreigners Face
With street solicitation under hard enforcement, some visitors may think that going to a licensed venue such as a soapland is therefore safe. That is also a serious mistake.
Japan's Anti-Prostitution Act prohibits paying for sexual intercourse, on the part of the seller and on the part of the buyer alike. As described in the previous section, no penalty attaches to the buyer's act itself, but that is not because it is legal: it is Japan's distinctive structure of a prohibition without a penalty. Soaplands and similar venues frequently operate in a grey zone built on frameworks such as the Public Bathhouse Act, and when police judge that illegal prostitution is in fact taking place, the venue is raided hard.
Large soaplands have indeed been raided in recent years, with operators and staff arrested in numbers. As public scrutiny of the buyer's side tightens along with the reform, the risk of being present as a customer at an illegal venue is impossible to calculate.
So what happens if a foreign traveller is arrested by Japanese police?
Under Japanese criminal procedure, an arrest can lead to detention of up to 23 days in a police holding cell. During that period contact with the outside world is severely restricted, you will miss the flight you booked, and your luggage stays in the hotel. Beyond that, a conviction brings a fine and a criminal record, and under the Immigration Control Act it can mean deportation, after which re-entry to Japan is very likely to be barred for several years or effectively permanently. A single careless act can cost you your social standing and your freedom to travel in the future.
Not Only Legal Risk: Sexually Transmitted Infections
Alongside the tightening of the law, the health risk is something you must never treat lightly. Sex with a woman waiting for customers on the street is extremely dangerous, because no hygiene management exists at all.
In Japan, reported cases of syphilis rose sharply from the late 2010s and peaked around 2023. The number has been falling since, but reports still run above 10,000 a year, and specialists describe the disease as having settled into the country rather than passing through as a temporary outbreak. Syphilis is curable if found and treated early, but left alone it can cause serious damage to the brain and the heart. HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhoea, among other serious sexually transmitted infections, are of course also a risk.
※ Syphilis trend data is from the Japan Institute for Health Security, "Notification Trends Among Syphilis Cases in Japan".
If a foreign visitor contracts a sexually transmitted infection in Japan, finding the right medical facility across a language barrier and paying high out-of-pocket costs without insurance coverage is very difficult. It can also produce an irreversible tragedy: symptoms appearing after you return home, and the infection passing to a partner or family member. Do not go anywhere near an act whose safety and health you cannot vouch for.
In Closing: For a Safe and Genuinely Good Trip to Japan
Japan is a country under the rule of law, and one that takes social rules and order seriously. The revised Anti-Prostitution Act now being prepared would hold the buyer of sex firmly to account.
We genuinely want you to enjoy this country's history and culture, its food and its scenery to the fullest. That is exactly why you should never engage in illegal paid sex or approach women carelessly in the night districts, because it can destroy that experience completely. Understand Japanese law and the risks correctly, and enjoy a safe and memorable trip.
We sincerely hope that no one reading this article ends up caught in trouble involving illegal paid sex.
Frequently Asked Questions From Tourists
- Q1. I am a foreign traveller and I cannot read Japanese. If I did not know that solicitation by the buyer is a crime, can I still be arrested?
- A1. Yes, you can. Japanese law applies to everyone inside Japan, foreign nationals included. "I did not know the law" is not a defence in Japan, and it is not a defence in most other countries either. Understanding the rules of the country you are visiting is treated as the traveller's responsibility.
- Q2. What if I negotiate privately through an internet board, social media or a dating app instead of on the street? Is that still a crime?
- A2. It is very likely to be. Whether solicitation by the buyer through information and communications networks will be covered in addition to solicitation visible to the public is still being worked out in the reform, but even under the current law you run a very high risk of falling foul of the prohibition on procuring prostitution, or of child prostitution offences if the other person turns out to be under 18. On top of that, the number of foreign visitors falling victim to extortion scams and to badger games arranged through social media has risen sharply.
- Q3. What if I was not trying to buy sex and just approached a woman on the street to chat her up, but the police became suspicious?
- A3. Approaching a woman in a specific area where women wait for customers, such as around Okubo Park, can in itself be treated by police as solicitation to buy sex, and you may be stopped for questioning or asked to accompany officers voluntarily. Proving your innocence — that you were only chatting her up — is extremely difficult across a language barrier. To avoid trouble, do not approach women you do not know in areas like that.
- Q4. I come from a country where prostitution is legal. Can I still be punished in Japan?
- A4. Yes. Whatever the law in your home country says, Japanese law applies inside Japanese territory. Buying sex and soliciting to buy sex are illegal in Japan and subject to enforcement. Respect the differences in culture and law, and follow the rules here.
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