High School Prostitution in Japan’s Sex Industry

July 28, 2026 Chris 73, A “love hotel” in Kabukicho, Tokyo.

By Benjamin Bloch

April 2, 2026

In recent years, Japanese high school girls have been pulled into the world of “JK” businesses, a term coming from the Japanese phrase joshi kousei (meaning “high school girls.”) On the surface, JK businesses operate fully within the scope of the law, providing a variety of activities, such as massages or romantic walks, with high school girls as companions. However, these JK businesses are often tied to underage prostitution, with the girls being pressured by their clients into sex, or sometimes even assaulted outright.

Girls enter JK businesses for different reasons. Some do it for the money, particularly for college tuition, and some do it simply out of curiosity. However, a common link found among JK girls is that they have subpar relationships at home and at school, leaving them feeling isolated and in need of emotional support. A 17-year-old girl admitted that she was aware of the dangers of entering the JK business world, but was willing to join anyway. “I was desperate. And if sex was all it took to make me stop feeling so worthless, I thought I was game for anything.” Another girl, a fifteen-year-old, lives with her father after her parents divorced when she was a child. “My dad is rarely at home, always busy with his work. And he doesn’t seem to notice me. So I thought, if I got into some trouble by engaging in this sort of shady business – like being taken into police custody or something – then he will finally begin to pay attention to me.” Both girls signed papers joining one of the most notorious JK parlors in Akihabara, one of the most JK-concentrated areas of Tokyo. The owners of such JK businesses exploit the vulnerability of such girls and soon have them entwined in the shady world of underage prostitution.

Yumeno Nito, a former high school dropout like many girls in JK businesses, runs Colabo, a support group that helps to rehabilitate former JK girls. According to Nito, the underage prostitution in JK businesses will never die out unless both the facilitators and customers are punished. The issue in shutting down these businesses lies with the legal loopholes. Not only are the services offered completely legal, but often the facilities are free from any sort of sexual activity. Instead, the business is used as a way for men to meet high school girls and exchange contact information, with negotiations for sex happening privately and independently. In this way, police crackdowns on JK businesses have indirectly assisted in privatizing the exchanges, as high school girls and potential clients have started making arrangements independently from the JK business where they first meet. The police have begun taking girls caught in raids into rehabilitation rather than into custody in an attempt to convince them to quit the business altogether.

However, some believe that not all blame lies with the adults; Kozue Hattori is a lawyer whose clients include men accused of sex with minors, and argues that the girls’ are not entirely victims. She says that when she has met girls to discuss out-of-court settlements, some say they wish the man had never been arrested so they would not lose their “cash cow.” To Hattori, blame lies with all parties. Others like Nito still believe that adults should carry the most responsibility, and the high school girls are victims. “The girls are teens who are still too immature to understand the gravity of what they’re doing. The guys, on the other hand, are grown-ups. They should know what they’re doing. There’s a huge difference.”