CLEANING UP THE ACT ON JAPAYUKIS

February 23, 2005- (The Philippine Star) Can 80,000 Filipino entertainers in Japan be all prostitutes? The question arises from Japan’s decision to cut their number starting Mar. 15, in response to US criticism of the Philippines as a major source and Japan as the destination of trafficked women.

Rushing to avoid a similar censure in 2005, the Tokyo immigration office posted in November a memo in the Japanese consulate in Manila.

Soliciting comments on stricter rules on the entry of singers and dancers, it prefaced: "Under the present situation, those who enter Japan with entertainer visas number around 130,000 a year. However, even among themselves, even though they expect to perform an entertainer’s activity, many of them actually work in bars and clubs as hostesses involved in illegal work. Some of them are forced to have dohan (dates)/prostitution with customers." For this Japan’s justice ministry will drive away nine-tenths of the 80,000 Filipino singers and dancers.

The move has Japanese club owners and promoters, Filipino recruiters and entertainers, and legislators on both sides up in arms. The controversy appears to revolve around the term "hostessing".

"Hostess" has a negative connotation among Filipinos. Generations have grown up believing that a hostess is synonymous to prostitute, thus immoral and criminal. There’s even a sick joke on it, "walang problema, smuggler si papa, hostess si mama." Also a new term for it: GRO, or guest relations officer in nightclubs.

Japan has a different view. It has a geisha tradition, in which women are trained as professional singers, dancers and companions for men. Geishas are even expected to have grounding in history, literature and culture, the better to converse with high-class club customers.

Prostitution is something else, though, and it is legal in Japan.

Cognizant of the difference, the International Labor Organization no less defined "hostessing" as legit work, "usually involving conversation, pouring drinks, lighting cigarettes, but no physical contact or sex service."

Philippine authorities frown on hostessing. As far back as 1991, then-Labor Sec. Ruben Torres prescribed, among others, for the deployment of entertainers abroad: "No performing artist shall be required to work as receptionist/hostess, to engage in dohan or other similar practices, to perform nude, indecent or other illegal acts; in no case shall the artist be required to solicit customers for the establishment or its owners." It was to protect singers and dancers from unscrupulous employers and, in Japan’s case, the dreaded Yakuza.

Japan has its own rules. It prohibits hiring of foreigners as hostesses, lest they displace the geishas. Clubs that hire foreign entertainers must have performing stages of at least 13 square meters, and waiting areas for the singers and dancers of at least nine sqm. Infractions spell closure of the club, stiff fines, and automatic jailing for 22 days to await filing of charges that can lead to long prison terms.

Nonetheless, Filipino entertainers enticed by larger tips volunteer to hostess. That by itself is not human trafficking through prostitution, but mere violation of Japanese labor laws. But some of them step over the line into prostitution. In the ’80s when deployment to Japan reached a frenzy, Filipinos who sold their flesh began to be called japayukis. The term came to encompass all entertainers searching for pastures greener than their barrios.

It is worse when abusive club owners force entertainers – in breach of job contracts – to go on dohan (dates) for the purpose of soliciting customers. Some are sold to prostitution. That constitutes human trafficking which, by definition, has the elements of force, coercion and fraud.

In 2004 the ILO reported, from Japan’s National Police Agency records, 307 cases of trafficked women in 2000-2003 from Thailand, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Korea, Cambodia, Colombia, Russia and the Philippines. Of the total, 18 were Filipinos: 4 in 2000, 12 in 2001, 2 in 2002, 0 in 2003.

Back in Manila NGOs cried for more protection of the women. Labor officials began requiring training and testing of singers and dancers. But the corrupt among them found ways to abuse the women some more, selling blank artist record books by the tens of thousands to Filipino talent scouts and Japanese promoters. Philippine training centers and talent managers began dealing directly with promoters and club owners, to the exclusion of licensed recruiters who are regulated by law. The arduous task of reform is still going on.

Meanwhile, however, Japan refuses to acknowledge its own failings. The justice ministry’s line that entertainers are "forced" to do work other than what is contracted, yet blaming it on them instead of harsh employers, was but the start of a series of attempts to deflect the issue. In November and again last week, the foreign ministry accused the Philippine embassy in Tokyo of violating international law. This, it claimed, by the collection of a $20,000-deposit to accredit a Japanese promoter and a ¥7,000-fee to process each entertainer’s deployment. Yet the deposit and fee had been in place since 1991 on agreement of both sides. The ministry feigns no knowledge of it, yet the Japanese officials only recently requested, and the Philippines relented, that the payments be made not only in Manila but also in Japan for speed and savings.

The deposit is "for good behavior," Ambassador Domingo Siazon explained, from which an aggrieved japayuki may claim recompense. In fact, the embassy in 2004 received 1,666 entertainers’ complaints against employers who withheld their salaries and passports. Now that may border on human trafficking by the Japanese side, considering the force, coercion and fraud.

Taken from: http://www.philstar.com/philstar/News200502232603.htm