japanbars

Bar workers brave risks to their safety

TOKYO

Filipina bar worker Jun panicked when she heard
British hostess Lucie Blackman had been killed
and mutilated in a horrific attack that sent
shockwaves through famously safe Tokyo’s bar
industry.

But Blackman’s death did not stop the 32-year-old
Filipina from working as a hostess, a job that has
provided a lucrative income ever since she first
came to Japan 17 years ago.

“I don’t go out on dates with my customers,” said
Jun, who only disclosed her first name, at a
“Philippine pub” in a desolate Tokyo suburb. “If
they asked me out, I would make sure to bring a
friend with me.”

Blackman, 21, disappeared in July 2000 while
working as a hostess in Tokyo’s seedy Roppongi
district, hoping to earn quick money to fund a trip to
Australia.

After seven months of searching, with her photos
pinned up on poles across Tokyo, her
dismembered body was found buried in a seaside
cave in Misaki, 50 kilometers south of Tokyo.

“I’ve heard one of my younger friends had a similar
problem,” Jun said. “She was about to get drugged
and taken to a hotel.”

Wealthy businessman Joji Obara was indicted for
drugging 10 young women and videotaping sex
with them, including Australian hostess Carita
Ridgway, who later died in a hospital.

Obara was sentenced to a life in prison last week
for the assaults on five Japanese and four
foreigners – from Australia, Britain, Canada and
Ukraine. But he was acquitted due to lack of
evidence in the Blackman case.

Japan has increasingly cracked down on bars
hiring foreign women after Blackman’s death and
an embarrassing US State Department report
which blacklisted the close ally over human
trafficking.

Japan issued nearly 135,000 “entertainer” visas,
long a convenient shield to bring in girls to work as
bar hostesses, at the peak in 2004, of which 61.3
per cent went to people from the Philippines.

The number shot down by more than 26 per cent in
the following year. “Westerners used to work on
their tourist visas casually as they backpacked the
world,” said Ryuji Demachi, a 51-year-old former
freelance writer who specializes in Japanese
nightlife.

“There is still a market for Western hostesses, but
the places where they can work now have gone
down to one-tenth from their height.”

Filipinas, other Asians and Eastern Europeans are
the most determined to make money and send it
back to their parents or buy a house back home, he
said. Jun is overstaying her entertainer visa, while
her friend Gina, 35, is only on temporary release
from immigration authorities, a status that could
lead to her detention at any time.

A growing number of Asian bar hostesses seek the
safer option of marrying a Japanese man to
camouflage their work in the world’s second-
largest economy.

Tomio Ota, 58, who frequents foreign hostess bars
and pubs, said he did not think many of the girls felt
threatened.

“There is no country that has the same high
demand for hostess girls as Japan,” he said. “Even
if they are not smart, they can make a lot of money
as long as they are a bit cute.”

“You have to keep in mind, they are from a country
where they would get one-tenth of what the yen gets
them,” Ota said.

Demachi said foreign women found the work of a
bar hostess to be a good deal – they earn plenty of
money without selling sex. “Prostitution is not a
prerequisite of this industry,” he said.

“They only chat, drink and sing karaoke with
Japanese men, and they can earn a fortune.”

Jun and Gina both said that Japanese men often
came off as perverts but were essentially harmless.

But asked what they would do if they were
victimised, the two Filipinas paused for a moment
as they watched the disco ball revolving from the
ceiling. They said they would not trust the
police.