Full English translation of article by Sweden's most circulated daily Dagens Nyheter, written by freelance journalist Hanna Acqvillin, on a fellow freelance journalist Shiori Ito who has claimed to be raped by a senior journalist of major TV news station. With express permission from the author, the article was translated into two languages; first into English, and then to Japanese. This is the original English version translated by Ulrika Ehrensvard, a Swedish consultant and adapted by Takahiro Katsumi, a Japanese translator and interpreter.
She has dared to be the first Japan’s #MeToo
December 22, 2017
Dagens Nyheter
[Video] 00.30 Shiori Ito accused a high-profile media director of raping her - for that she had to pay a high price.
Shiori Ito put everything at stake when she accused a high-profile TV newsman of raping her. She was hated and stood alone in a country where nobody wants to talk about sex crimes.
When Shiori Ito was ten years-old, her mother took her to Summer Land, an outdoor swimming pool complex. She was playing happily in the new bikini she had been nagging about since the day before, when a man suddenly came up behind her in the water.
“His hands touched every part of my body,” she said.
She hurried back to the adults to tell what had happened. Their reaction left a scar in her heart that remains till today, when her mother’s friend explained that this happened because she had such a sweet bikini.
“I should have known better.”
The same sense of powerlessness and fear came back to her when Shiori, now 28 years old, held a press conference for Japanese media this year in May 2017.
With a background of having studied in the United States, Shiori is a freelance journalist who has written for Reuters, Al-Jazeera and The Economist, among others. She stands out like an odd bird in Japanese society where most neither speak English nor identify with the outspoken culture of the West.
[Photo] Shiori Ito has become the symbol of the # metoo movement in Japan. Photo: Lars Lindqvist
“I’ve reported from the FARC’s guerrilla in Colombia’s jungle and cocaine trafficking scene from Mexico, but it is here in Japan - the supposedly world’s safest country - which I’ve felt most afraid,” she said at the beginning of her press conference.
In front of flashing cameras, she accused the bureau chief of one of Japan’s biggest television channels for raping her in a hotel room. He is a well-known name in the media industry and had published two books on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The last thing she remembered was that they had dinner at a sushi restaurant, and then everything blacked out.
“At 5:00 am, after I regained my consciousness, I found myself being naked in a hotel bed and a man was inside me against my will, she told the astonished journalists” - no Japanese woman had previously talked so openly about a rape case.
Shiori had summoned the country’s media hoping to break the taboo and to question why her rape case was dropped, according to her sources, after “orders from above”.
After the press conference there were only a few in the media that supported her story or wrote about Shiori’s case. Instead, the media focused about the public discussing her attire - that she had not clipped the top two buttons on her shirt - than what she actually said at the press conference.
“A journalist colleague had advised me to wear my suit to the press conference, but I refused. I was tired of being told how to behave like a victim, says Shiori.
[Photo] Shiori Ito eats lunch in central Tokyo. Photo: Lars Lindqvist
I met Shiori Ito for the first time in August this year [2017], two months after the press conference. She was sitting at the kitchen table in her studio apartment in central Tokyo and from time to time she looks through the slit between the long curtains, down towards the rushing traffic.
She was too scared to go outside.
After the press conference, her Inbox were filled with death threats, unknown numbers had called her phone and lies about her privacy had been posted online along with pictures of her family and friends.
A woman criticized her for failing to protect herself. Speculations were abound suspecting she had a political agenda to remove the right-leaning Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from power, because a Japanese woman would never talk openly about something so shameful. Sometime, isolating herself from the rest of the world was so difficult that she thought about taking her life.
“I was called a whore and prostitute and they said I should die. It was a horrible time,” she says.
“I had to do everything I can before getting help from anyone. I was so dejected that I could not get myself out of bed.”
Friends and family advised her not to speak publicly.
“I think they wanted to protect me, but they also want to protect themselves. They fear of losing their jobs or getting cast out of society because of me … which from Western eyes is completely absurd,” Shiori told me while her eyes were filled with tears.
“It hurt to see that people close to me were being hurt badly because of me.”
Police investigation was inadequate due to political pressure. But even health care, justice, and the social safety net were unhelpful.
I had to do everything I can before getting help from anyone, says Shiori, recollecting on the days after she woke up in the hotel room.
She first visited a gynecologist who could not help. Then she called SARC, Tokyo’s only help center for the rape, to find out which hospital she could go to because only 14 of Japan’s 47 prefectures - in urban areas - have hospitals equipped with rape kits to take samples and secure evidence.
The staff woman who responded to her call said that Shiori had to make reservations for evaluation before they could give her any information.
“I was so dejected that I could not get myself out of bed,” said Shiori.
Five days later, she decided to go to the local Takanawa police station, and there she met with police officers who did not want to accept her filing damages because it is difficult to investigate.
Shiori, who had hoped that the job dinner with a senior manager in the TV industry could help her put a foot into the industry, suddenly saw her dreams crumble.
“The police officer said that I could forget about my career being a journalist after this, because nobody would like to hire me. They said my life will be over. But … I couldn’t keep being silent,” she said.
A SOCIETY OF TABOO
It is unusual to report rape in Japan, the stigma makes women silence and only 4 percent exposed to sexual violence choose to report, according to a government survey from 2014.
“ Many believe that rape only happens on films. This is worsened by the fact that media does not even use the terminology of ‘rape’, but calls it ‘only’ as a molesting. I love my country but this has to stop,“ says Shiori.
When the victim decides to go public, it is common that they are subjected to harsh blame from the society. The phenomenon goes under the term "second rape” [in Japan]. Shiori talks about the grueling interrogation by the police, about questions that were repeated over and over again: Was she a virgin? What kind of man does she like? What was her love life like?
And then, in front of a crowd of police officers, she needed to perform a walkthrough with the aid of a body-sized doll in body size to show how the rape had happened. Getting a female police officer to be present is virtually impossible in Japan, where only 8 percent of the police force is women.
“They said I did not look sad enough to have been raped. I should cry more, act like a victim,” she said.
[Photo] Shiori Ito says that there are special places, rooms built as subway cars, where men go and pay to grope the girls. Shiori Ito has tried to interview the men who go there, but it was difficult. Photo: Lars Lindqvist
When she eventually convinced a police investigator to watch the surveillance camera from the hotel, her case accelerated and more evidence was collected.
The video record showed how she was brought into the hotel by the TV manager that night. Even the taxi driver who drove them from the restaurant to the TV manager’s hotel room testified that she behaved in a drunk and confused way and repeatedly asked to be released at a subway station. But the TV manager had insisted she would remain in the taxi. Even DNA proofs were secured from her underwear.
A few weeks after notification, Shiori was informed that a warrant had been issued by prosecutors and that they would interrogate him. But only hours before the arrest would take place, the case was dropped without warning. A senior police chief, who previously worked for the prime minister’s chief of staff, told the Japanese media that it was he who ordered to drop the case because there was insufficient evidence. Even though he has not previously been involved in her case, or usually works with that type of police procedure.
The police inspector who had collected evidence of her case was transferred to another department. Shiori and her lawyer then appealed to the police’s decision to drop the case to an independent justice committee. But even there it was decided that the investigation will not be raised again. Something that did not surprise her lawyer, as only one percent of all cases is reopened.
The police refuse to say why they dismissed the arrest warrant. Everything happens behind closed doors without transparency.
Shiori will never forget the disappointment she felt afterwards: now once and for all she thought that it was proved the society was not on the victim’s side.
“If what the law says does not matter and the police have such a great power that they can suppress an arrest warrant without holding anyone accountable, I wonder what sort of society we live in?”
Shiori felt like the society has ignored her, as if someone had placed a gag on her. She was once again the ten-year-old girl in the swimming pool looking for protection.
But perhaps it was her background, the years she spent in the United States, which gave her courage to continue the fight for justice. She wondered how far people with power were willing to go to silence her.
BAILING OUT
The unique thing about Japan’s judiciary system is that 99 percent of all court cases lead to convictions. It also means that crimes with more severe burden of proof, such as rape, rarely go to trial.
Yumi Itakura, lawyer of the Tokyo Public Law Office, has been working for rape cases in Japan for many years, and says that sexual offenses are handled lightly in their country. It is so bad that society barely acknowledges that there has been a crime at all and the perpetrator can bail out of the situation with a small amount of money and leave as a free person the same day.
“Both the police and prosecutors send out signals to the victim neither to report nor to speak out. They get blamed. It’s your fault, you followed along, you did not try to flee, you drank alcohol, your skirt was too short,” says Itakura.
In the end, the victim feels isolated and misunderstood and unable to resist the pressure of a financial settlement in the form of conciliation. Another problem is that victims do not get the support they need. Only in 2011, the country was introduced with its first 24/7 operating crisis center for the raped victims, and today, in the multi-million city of Tokyo, there is only one crisis center with a staff of two people.
“Capacity or training to help is not available to the extent necessary, “says Itakura.
[Photo] Shiori Ito has written a book based on her observations at the police. Photo: Lars Lindqvist
Shiori carefully observed all her interactions with the police. After the case was dropped, she started her own investigation and received new testimony from the taxi driver and interviewed cleaning staff at the hotel, hoping to make the responsible institutions and persons to take responsibility to provide testimonies.
"The police refuse to say why they dismissed the arrest warrant. Prosecutors did not want to explain why they would not prosecute again, or why the police inspector was moved to another department. Everything happened behind closed doors without transparency,” says Shiori, who decided to publish a book based on her observations. A book that happened to emerge roughly while the assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein reached the public.
The Japanese police use the phrase “it all happens in a black box” where there is no transparency and it’s your words against theirs. That was also the reason that Shiori decided to name her book the way it is.
Japan, which is the world’s third largest economy, and where Tokyo will host the Summer Olympics in 2020, is far behind when it comes to women’s rights and gender equality in society. The country is far below the list drawn up annually by The Global Gender Gap Report. The UN has recommended, according to the Women’s Convention, that Japan reviews its laws on abortion, as abortion is only legal with the husband’s permission - even if pregnancy has been caused as a result of rape.
In June this year (2017), Japan revised its 110-year-old law on rape, after being pressured by several human rights organizations. A law that has been untouched since 1907. Penalty for rape has now been increased from three years to five years and now has the penalty equivalent to theft.
Before the amendment, the definition of rape was only vaginal penetration by the penis. Now, it also includes forced anal and oral sex, which means rape against men is also covered. However, for example, the prosecution requirement remains that the victim must prove that violence or threat have occurred during the rape.
SEXISM
From an early age, young boys see how women are objectified in manga anime - Japanese comic books and cartoons - and in tabloid newspapers. Being molested on trains is so common that warning signs are set up in subway stations. Since 2001 there are passenger cars designated specifically for women. According to an article from ABC News, 64 percent of women between the ages of 20 and 30 have at least once been molested on Tokyo trains. Encountering men who grope them was something that Shiori and her classmates constantly faced on their way to and back from school dressed in their school uniforms. It was all up to them to make sure not to become victims of them.
“It was always the youngest, the shortest, or the one who seemed to be the weakest who were considered to be in risk,” she says, and it was important to walk fast and with a straight back to show strength.
She has grown up in a society built by men, where one has to address older persons in a certain way and not speak against them.
“There are major communication difficulties in the Japanese language. No can mean yes in a sexual context. Even the lack of sexual education in schools makes us grow up with a skewed picture of what sex means and what is allowed, “Says Shiori.
"The inspector said that I could forget my career after this. But … we cannot keep on being quiet, "says Shiori Ito.
In October this year (2017), the accused television chief wrote an eleven-page article in the right-wing populist newspaper Hanada. The text had the title "Dear Shiori” and was his version of what happened that night.
He denied committing any crime and wrote about Shiori’s ‘insatiable’ appetite for alcohol and that she drank more than she could handle. He dismissed allegations of having drugged her or having had special intentions behind the dinner. He explained that he took her to the hotel for her own sake, that she would be safer if she could sleep until she felt better (was sober again) under surveillance. He claimed that it was Shiori who crept up to him in the morning - and that he would rather not mention any details about what happened since he did not want to ridicule her. Now, because he is completely free from suspicion of crime, she does not have the right to call herself a rape victim, he wrote.
“Every time I read the word rape in the newspaper, it’s a mini victory. At last we exist.”
Shiori filed a civil lawsuit in the fall (2017) and the trial began on December 5. Usually, it takes up to one-and-a-half years before decision is reached. She claimed damages of 11,000,000 yen, equivalent to 800,000 Swedish crowns. She says this is the last chance for her to find out why her case was dropped.
But in parallel to this, questions are now beginning asked about her case in the parliament. A group of opposition members formed a commission of inquiry in November with a mandate to examine Shiori’s case. During one of the commission meetings, Junichiro Kan, spokesman from the National Police Agency, was heard and refused to give details about the case. On the question of how common it is to cancel an arrest warrant, he answered ambiguously: “It’s hard to review documents from the past to draw conclusions.”
JAPAN’S #METOO
It is not easy for the Metoo movement to enter a country like Japan. Japanese people do not relate to what is happening in other countries, and society does not interact with the rest of the world in the same way as, for example, in Europe.
“This is something that is drawn from their history when Japan was isolated and self-sufficient for several centuries during the imperialist era. Therefore, an outdated view of women can survive in today’s modern society,” says Ryan Takeshita, chief editor of Huffington Post Japan.
Takeshita was one of the few who - early on - wrote about the Shiori’s case. He says that Japanese media refused to write about her experiences because the state has a major influence over the country’s media (Japan is ranked 72 in this year’s report of Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, Sweden is in second place after Norway.) Furthermore, sexual violence is treated as women’s problems - nothing that fits in a news magazine about politics and economics.
“Sex, with or without violence, is seen as a very intimate matter and something that should not be discussed in public.”
Shiori had upset many when she made ‘a big deal out of it’.
Shiori had to pay a high price as a woman behind Japan’s #metoo . But today, the country’s media has been forced to open up to discuss sexual harassment and rape. Her book has given her acceptance among journalists and politicians, and a handful of women have openly said #metoo. She has talked about her experiences in front of Parliament members and lectured at universities. Slowly, the taboo is loosening its grip on Japan.
“Every time I read the word rape in the newspaper, it’s a mini victory. At last we exist,” says Shiori.
FACTS
Shiori Ito
Age: 28 years.
Living: Tokyo and London.
Occupation: Journalist.
Family: Mom, dad, little brother and little sister.
Background: Grown up just outside of Tokyo. At the age of 15, she studied one year in Kansas, USA. When she was 22, she moved to New York and studied photography for three years.
Current: With the book "Black box” telling about the stigma of rape victims in Japan. The book is based on secret audio recordings with the police when she reported a famous television chief for rape. The book is on Amazon’s list of best-selling e-books in Japan.
Sexual crime in Japan
31.6 percent of sexual crime victims talk about their experiences with others, and only 4.3 percent go to the police. Shame was stated as the most common reason why victims did not tell. (Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office, 2014)
In 2014, only 448 cases of sexual offenses led to prosecution - in a country with 127 million inhabitants. (Justice Ministry 2014)
Until 2014, it was legal to hold child pornography.
The law of rape was changed in June 2017 for the first time since 1907.
What is sexual consent in Japan?
According to a survey conducted by NHK, Japan’s public service television channel, the following were considered as sexual consent:
When two people have dinner together alone. (11 percent)
Wearing tight (exposing) clothes. (23 percent)
Becoming unsober together. (35 percent)
Black box
The police use the expression that it all happens in a ‘black box’, where no one else has transparency and words are against words. It’s also what Shiori Ito decided to name his newly published book after.
JUN 3, [ BILINGUAL ] A Hashtag in Support of Victims Takes Off on Japanese Twitter After a High-Profile Journalist Is Accused of Sexual Assault | Global Voices
JUN 26, [ BILINGUAL ] Open letter to @fccjapan PAC members incl. Co-Chair @tjimbo + their response | MYSELF & FCCJ
JUL 13, [ BILINGUAL ] After rape allegation against TV journalist, Shiori hopes to shed light on victims’ plight | The Japan Times
OCT 17, [ BILINGUAL ] Why 'Shiori' decided to publish her latest book, the"Black Box" | Bunshun Online
OCT 24, [ BILINGUAL ] Press Conference: Shiori Ito, Journalist & Documentary Film Maker | Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan
DEC 15, [BILINGUAL] Japan's #MeToo Moment | BBC Radio
DEC 22, [ BILINGUAL ] She has dared to be the first Japan’s #MeToo | SWE: Dagens Nyheter (1/5)
DEC 22, [ BILINGUAL ] She has dared to be the first Japan’s #MeToo | SWE: Dagens Nyheter (2/5)
DEC 22, [ BILINGUAL ] She has dared to be the first Japan’s #MeToo | SWE: Dagens Nyheter (3/5)
DEC 22, [ BILINGUAL She has dared to be the first Japan’s #MeToo | SWE: Dagens Nyheter (4/5)
DEC 22, [ BILINGUAL ] She has dared to be the first Japan’s #MeToo | SWE: Dagens Nyheter (5/5)
DEC 22, [ENGLISH-ONLY] She has dared to be the first Japan’s #MeToo | SWE: Dagens Nyheter (ALL)
DEC 29, [ BILINGUAL ] She Broke Japan’s Silence on Rape | The New York Times
2018
JAN 2, [ BILINGUAL ] Saying #MeToo in Japan | US: POLITICO
JAN 3, [ BILINGUAL ] How Did #MeToo Start In Japan? These Voices Are Planting Small, Yet Powerful Seeds Of Change | BUSTLE
JAN 12, [ BILINGUAL ] Japan’s quiet #MeToo movement says everything｜The Japan Times
MOMENTS (Twitter)
2017
OCT 17, [ ENGLISH-ONLY ] Why 'Shiori' decided to publish her latest book, the"Black Box" | Bunshun Online
DEC 15, [ BILINGUAL ] Japan's #MeToo Moment | BBC Radio
DEC 22, [ BILINGUAL ] She has dared to be the first Japan’s #MeToo | SWE: Dagens Nyheter (ALL)
2018
JAN 2, [ ENGLISH-ONLY ] Saying #MeToo in Japan | US: POLITICO
JAN 8, [ BILINGUAL ] Transcript of the historic #TIMESUP speech by @Oprah at the Golden Globe Awards
She has dared to be the first Japan’s #MeToo
日本で初の #MeToo となることを選んだ女性（４）
December 22 , 2017
2017年12月22日
ダーゲンス・ニュヘテル
By Hanna Aqvillin
原著：ハンナ・アクヴィリン
英訳: Ulrika Ehrensvärd
和訳: @tkatsumi06j
（３）に戻る
SEXISM
セクシズム
From an early age, young boys see how women are objectified in manga anime - Japanese comic books and cartoons - and in tabloid newspapers. Being molested on trains is so common that warning signs are set up in subway stations. Since 2001 there are passenger cars designated specifically for women. According to an article from ABC News, 64 percent of women between the ages of 20 and 30 have at least once been molested on Tokyo trains. Encountering men who grope them was something that Shiori and her classmates constantly faced on their way to and back from school dressed in their school uniforms. It was all up to them to make sure not to become victims of them.
"It was always the youngest, the shortest, or the one who seemed to be the weakest who were considered to be in risk," she says, and it was important to walk fast and with a straight back to show strength.
「リスクがあるのは常に、もっとも若くて、もっとも小さい人、またはもっとも弱そうに見える人でした」
詩織さんはこう語った。
背筋をピンと張って強気の姿勢を見せ、早く歩くのが重要だったという。
She has grown up in a society built by men, where one has to address older persons in a certain way and not speak against them.
There are major communication difficulties in the Japanese language. No can mean yes in a sexual context. Even the lack of sexual education in schools makes us grow up with a skewed picture of what sex means and what is allowed," says Shiori.
"The inspector said that I could forget my career after this. But ... we can not keep on being quiet, "says Shiori Ito. （「その警官は私にこう言いました。”この後は誰も雇ってくれなくなるから、ジャーナリストになる道は諦めたほうがいい”と。でも私は黙っていられませんでした」と語る伊藤詩織さん。）
In October this year (2017), the accused television chief wrote an eleven-page article in the right-wing populist newspaper Hanada. The text had the title "Dear Shiori" and was his version of what happened that night.
He denied committing any crime and wrote about Shiori's 'insatiable' appetite for alcohol and that she drank more than she could handle. He dismissed allegations of having drugged her or having had special intentions behind the dinner. He explained that he took her to the hotel for her own sake, that she would be safer if she could sleep until she felt better (was sober again) under surveillance. He claimed that it was Shiori who crept up to him in the morning - and that he would rather not mention any details about what happened since he did not want to ridicule her. Now, because he is completely free from suspicion of crime, she does not have the right to call herself a rape victim, he wrote.
"Every time I read the word rape in the newspaper, it's a mini victory. At last we exist" （レイプという言葉が新聞に表れるたびに、小さな勝利を手にしています。ついに私たちの存在が認められたのです）
Shiori filed a civil lawsuit in the fall (2017) and the trial began on December 5. Usually, it takes up to one-and-a-half years before decision is reached. She claimed damages of 11,000,000 yen, equivalent to 800,000 Swedish crowns. She says this is the last chance for her to find out why her case was dropped.
But in parallel to this, questions are now beginning asked about her case in the parliament. A group of opposition members formed a commission of inquiry in November with a mandate to examine Shiori's case. During one of the commission meetings, Junichiro Kan, spokesman from the National Police Agency, was heard and refused to give details about the case. On the question of how common it is to cancel an arrest warrant, he answered ambiguously: "It's hard to review documents from the past to draw conclusions."
