Police in Higashi-Matsuyama, Saitama Prefecture, have arrested a 62-year-old man on suspicion of indecent behavior after he allegedly groped a woman sitting next to him on a bus.
According to police, the incident occurred at around 4:35 a.m. Saturday on a bus traveling from Nagano City to Higashi-Matsuyama City, Kyodo News reported.
Police said Hikaru Nakatani, who works for the Ishikawa prefectural government, is accused of groping the woman, who is in her 20s, as she slept. The woman woke up and complained to the driver who called 110.
Nakatani was arrested when the bus arrived in Higashi-Matsuyama.
© Japan Today
20 Comments
Login to comment
Bashir butt
uncivilized and A shameful act
Redemption
Incomprehensible to me.
wallace
Japan needs a sex offenders register.
Jonathan Prin
@Girl in Tokyo.
Right, you always have the last word whatever the real situation is.
Have you seen or heard huge demonstrations against gropers in the street. Nowhere.
Have you seen women politicians shout to do something on TV about it. Nowhere.
Have you heard about a group of women trying to catch them. Nowhere.
Have you seen specific self-defense groups for women growing. Nowhere.
If Japanese were more vocal (and sorry not you with your western style), I believe things would change. If it is not part of their first request for a better life, then so be it.
I also believe the matter of rapes is far more important than groping in view of the way it is dealt by authorities, with a chikan who can lose everything within seconds and a rapist who can nearly go scot-free with the victim ridiculed in Japan. Priorities first !
Jonathan Prin
@GirlinTokyo
I am with you to fight any violence against women, and more than welcome to debate. And the more writing is not necessarily the better. Keep cool sometimes.
Your way of antagonizing men and women in general is awful, and totally detrimental to your wish of making women be recognized as victims.
No, a chikan is not same as a raper. Happy to disagree 100%.
And no the replies you gave are so far from a national level or concrete actions. More words, as usual, which are not enough from Japanese women from group you are not part.
girl_in_tokyo
Jonathan PrinToday 01:23 pm JST
There are many.
http://spring-voice.org/english/
https://www.gender.go.jp/policy/sokushin/ouen/safe/victim/
https://jammin.co.jp/charity_list/160926-tsubomi/
https://sarc-tokyo.org/
etc.
I'd be very interested in knowing why you think women are at fault for being sexually molested by men. Do explain.
kaimycahl
@wallace In other words Japan needs a Chikan register, if this is a big problem perhaps the government can do something about it. Once a man has been caught and convincingly convicted he should be finger printed and cataloged as a Chikan offender.
Japan needs a sex offenders register.
njca4
It's great to read that she had the courage to tell the bus driver what was going on.
I would like to see some kind of posters on the public transportation system here, or maybe some announcements over the speaker system warning about possible gropers ..but that would mean admitting that there's a problem.
girl_in_tokyo
William_BlakeToday 07:45 am JST
This. 100%.
And I'm sick to death of the comments to the contrary, making jokes or making light of the situation, or even accusing women of making up stories and lying. I'm also sick of the inaction of the government and the police, the majority of whom are men, and who see this as a woman's issue and not a societal one.
I get why foreigners are reluctant to step in when they witness chikan incidents, but what excuse do Japanese men have for just watching and doing and saying nothing?
The problem won't get fixed if no one is ever willing to do anything to call chikan out and make sure they are arrested, fined, and shamed.
opheliajadefeldt
Too many women and girls are being assaulted and abused in the streets and on public transport, why?, because the other people around them choose to ignore it. I know it is a world wide problem but whether it is worse in Japan or not I can only guess, but every day there is another is another story in JT almost identical. One way I can think of to stop it is to split the seating areas on buses and trains for women or men only..ie. women at the front of a bus and men at the back, with an exception made for couples.
girl_in_tokyo
Do I not have the same right to comment as you? What exactly are you complaining about?
There are demonstrations against sexual assault held monthly in Tokyo by Flower Demo: https://www.flowerdemo.org/
There is a ministry in the Japanese government for Gender Equality, and sex crimes is their purview: https://www.gender.go.jp/english_contents/international/apec/apec2021_2.html
Yes: https://www.opentheblackbox.jp/
Not sure what you mean by self-defense group, but women can train at pretty much any gym or dojo. I'm not involved in such training, but a quick google turned up a good number of links: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=%E5%A5%B3%E6%80%A7%E8%AD%B7%E8%BA%AB%E8%A1%93%E8%AC%9B%E7%BF%92%E4%BC%9A++%E7%97%B4%E6%BC%A2%E5%AF%BE%E7%AD%96
I did the hard work of googling for you to help you answer your questions. You're welcome.
Since those things you said aren't happening, actually ARE happening, how does that new information change this hypothesis?
And for the record, I am quite cognizant that a lot of women, perhaps the majority, are afraid to retaliate against sexual assaulters and other various sex pests. I'm glad you recognize that, too, since it seems a lot of people in these comment sections instead want to blame women for not fighting back and make it their fault. I am glad you don't think this way. In fact, I think we have similar opinions on this.
I wish the government and the police would take harder action, just like you do - we do agree on that.
I don't think there is any need to rank sexual assault. We can do two or more things at the same time, at the same level of prioroty.
sakurasuki
Old guy on the night bus try his luck, this kind of incident happened in the past and they changed the seat between male and female. That's the reason when anyone want to book night bus, there's form that will ask gender.
John
This is sick but we have to consider the effect of Japanese culture that these people are grown up. Starting from child sexualisation and continuous emphasis of sexual content in the media, which is not acceptable in most other countries in the west. The entire focus of life in japan seems like centered around sexuality. There are other things to enjoy in life.
this behaviour is very sick especially at his age, but it’s common in japan due to negative impact of the culture.
Jonathan Prin
You hear of no policy for women for self-defense or national organization to help victims.
Politicians are first responsible of course but IMHO, Japanese women are also part of their own problems, which is cultural.
Chikan won't disappear anytime sooner or later because of stickers saying beware of chikans...