Schoolgirl Prostitution in Japan

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2005 in the subject Sociology - Gender Studies, grade: -, University of Sheffield, course: japanese Language and Society, language: English, abstract: Prostitution is known as the worlds oldest profession and dates back to Sumerian times. World wide an estimated 300 million women regularly have sex with 5 to 10 partners during a typical working day (International Labour Organization, 1998, quoted in Rhawn,2004, 154). Throughout history men in positions of power, or those in the public eye have kept mistresses or have had dealings with prostitutes, from Presidents Carter, Jefferson, and Kennedy of the USA, to Mitterrand of France, Mussolini of Italy, and Prince Charles of Great Britain. Great writers such as Charles Dickens have also been guilty of keeping a mistress. So why should the phenomenon of enjo-kosai in Japan be a matter for concern and public outcry? Enjo-kosai has been translated as schoolgirl prostitution and in this paper I intend to answer the above question and to illustrate that it does indeed warrant public outcry as it involves, in many cases, sex between adult males and adolescent girls, sometimes as young as 13.