Japan says UN retracts remarks on schoolgirl sex

After further reviews there was no official and recent data to support the 13-percent figure, says UN Office

TOKYO: A UN human rights envoy has retracted her claim that 13 percent of schoolgirls in Japan are involved in forms of paid dating that can involve sex, the Japanese government said Wednesday.

The step came shortly after Tokyo bitterly complained to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and demanded it show evidence to support the figure that was announced in Tokyo last month.

Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, the UN's special envoy on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, wrote to the Permanent Mission of Japan to the International Organizations in Geneva to say she could not offer hard evidence to support her claim, according to a Japanese official.

Japan calls on UN envoy to retract remarks on schoolgirl sex

"The letter said after further reviews that there was no official and recent data to support the 13-percent figure," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

In her letter, de Boer-Buquicchio vowed not to use the figure in the future and said the number will not be part of a report to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, Suga said.

"We regard this explanation as effectively a retraction of the comment over the 13-percent figure," he added.

"The Japanese government will continue to ask them to draft reports based on objective data."

Now or never

Nekane Lavin, from the UN Office of the High Commissionner in Geneva, later issued a statement by email saying the special envoy will make no further comment until March when she submits her report.

"Please note ... the Special Rapporteur will not make further comments on this issue until the presentation of her full and comprehensive report on her visit to Japan to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2016."

In a press conference last month, de Boer-Buquicchio spoke of the Japanese social phenomenon of "enjo kosai", often translated as "compensated dating", in which older men pay teenage girls for dates that may involve sex.

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"Some 13 percent of the school girls in Japan are involved in that kind of activity, which perhaps starts with a relatively innocent activity," she said at the briefing.

The "innocent" behaviour may include men going for a walk with high school girls, she added.

When Japan subsequently demanded that she present evidence for the claim, de Boer-Buquicchio said this month she had "no official statistics" on compensated dating.

She said she had seen the figure "in open sources".

Concerns over the sexualisation of young girls have been frequently expressed by Japanese media, women's groups and some politicians, but the precise extent of abuses or illicit activities has proven difficult to measure.