Man arrested for employing 17-year-old high schooler as sex worker

Police in Tokyo have arrested a 40-year-old man for employing a 17-year-old high school student.

Takeshi Shikano runs a sex industry business in Ikebukuro. He has been arrested on suspicion of violating the child welfare law for employing the high schooler and either making her or allowing her to engage in sex work.

Media reports about the arrest do not specify what kind of sex work, which took place in a rented room in the neighborhood in November last year. The police, though, termed it JK rifure — or high female high school student reflexology — service, where cuddles and so on are offered with more intimate options available. At JK rifure services, the women are often actually older than high school age.

Such parlors began to spring up in the 2010s, though there has been a crackdown of late. This was technically a “dispatch service,” meaning the girl was sent to the room from an undisclosed location (as opposed to JK rifure where the services always take place at a fixed location like a parlor).

Shikano has denied the charge, claiming he didn’t know the girl was 17 years old. For her part, the girl is reported to have said that she wanted money to fund her fandom of a male underground idols.

Police rumbled the crime when they spotted the girl in the local area (presumably, they saw her taking customers to the room and guessed she was underage). Media reports showed Shikano, a very ordinary-looking guy with glasses, doing the perp walk, and also the police’s display of seized items, which included a variety of costumes. Somewhat ironically, these seemed to include police uniforms.

Ikebukuro in northwest Tokyo is a major transport hub and also home to a large bevy of brothels and sex services. Along with Akihabara, it is the Tokyo center for JK rifure and related JK sex services (known collectively as the “JK business”).