Foreign teacher suspended for six months for upskirting

Yamagata Education Board announced on October 17 that it had suspended a foreign assistant language teacher for six months for taking photos up girls’ skirts in Tokyo.

The unnamed man in his thirties works at high schools in the prefecture.

The teacher is accused of using his phone to take pics up women’s skirts on escalators in Tokyo Station and a mall on a trip to the capital last month. At the mall, another woman realized and alerted a security guard, who was able to apprehend the foreign and call police.

He was taken for questioning by Tokyo police, who then told his workplace.

“I let my guard down while relaxing on vacation,” the man allegedly told the education board to explain his actions.

Media reports do not specify if the man, whose nationality was not disclosed, was ultimately arrested and charged by police in Tokyo, or just let off with a warning.

Upskirting (panchira) is a big issue in Japan, like many places, and young women in skirts and dresses sometimes place their backs behind their legs to prevent people from seeing or taking pics of their under their clothes when riding up an escalator.

A whole cottage industry of porn, photography, and even illustrations exists to satisfy people with an upskirting fetish, which is surely better than doing it themselves and getting arrested, especially since voyeurism is now criminalized in Japan.

The board also announced it has suspended or warned two male elementary school teachers for, respectively, sexual harassment of their colleagues and using physical force to punish a child.

One of the teachers, a man in his twenties, had hugged a female coworker while they waited for a car to pick them up after they went out drinking with others in June. This merited as harassment and a one-month suspension.

The other teacher is a man in his fifties who pushed a child during an earthquake drill in April, and had also shouted at the child in an inappropriately loud voice.