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The story
On September 17, an expert panel convened by the Ministry of Justice compiled a report on how to regulate prostitution, concluding that some form of regulation should be introduced for solicitation by buyers, which has until now carried no penalty. The current Anti-Prostitution Law only targets solicitation by sellers, leaving buyers’ solicitation effectively unregulated. Based on the report, the Ministry of Justice reportedly plans to consider submitting an amendment bill to the Diet. On 5ch, threads saw a mix of cautious opinions arguing that regulation would simply push the trade underground, and views suggesting that cutting off demand would eliminate sellers as well, along with concerns about gathering evidence during crackdowns and the risk of blackmail.
Anti-Prostitution Law overhaul: New regulation on “buyer” solicitation planned — panel report, amendment under consideration – Sankei News
2026/9/17 15:51
On the 17th, a Ministry of Justice expert panel discussing how to regulate prostitution compiled a report stating that “some form of regulation should be established” for buyer solicitation, which currently carries no penalty. Based on the content, the Ministry of Justice is moving forward with consideration of submitting an amendment bill to the Diet.
Source: sankei.com / Original article here
What people said
Make it a crime severe enough to ruin the buyer's life.
That way nobody will buy anymore, and sellers will disappear too.
Since they'll disappear eventually, there's no need to penalize the women.
It'll just go underground.
Are you saying sellers are victims or something?
Both sellers and buyers do it because they want to.
If the sex trade market disappeared, some people would be in trouble.
They'll bring AIDS back into Japan.
Dating and marriage between men and women are basically a form of prostitution anyway.
If a woman demands a man pay for meals, gifts, or even support her financially, you should arrest her for prostitution.
They're not going to arrest the buyers either, are they?
Are they actually going to?
If so, hurry up and arrest the sellers already.
Right now only the seller's solicitation is prosecuted,
but going forward they want to add the buyer's solicitation
as a target for enforcement too.
As for making the women's side not guilty going forward,
that's a separate discussion being had elsewhere.
No way they do.
So that's where the buried treasure (untaxed income) is hiding.
Taken to the extreme, if the number of buyers hits zero, the whole concept of selling stops existing.
They'll just ship it overseas.
Goods or people, it's the same story —
if it can't be sold domestically, it goes abroad.
Isn't this a human rights violation?
It's a problem rooted deep in the brain that people can't resist.
In countries where it's fully illegal, all that's left is streetwalking,
and treatment gets even worse than now.
They don't always say it outright — sometimes they just hold up three fingers and go "how about it?"
It makes me feel awful, so I'm glad they're going to crack down on it.
They'll probably start going door-to-door instead,
once customer lists start circulating.
Getting arrested for hitting on some sketchy woman standing on the street isn't worth it.
I don't want my face photographed 😓
No, if they'd been arresting people all along, it wouldn't have come to this.
There's nothing good about prostitution spreading, so they should just hurry up and arrest people, right?
That's why they do get busted occasionally.
But unless the woman actually solicits someone right in front of an officer,
there's no evidence to grab, so just standing there isn't enough to get arrested.
The point is, if you don't arrest for that, it's the same story for the buyer's side.
Even if she's the one who approaches you and you respond with "what do you want?", someone's bound to show up saying, "There, you agreed to prostitution. Pay up unless you want me to tell the police." That's basically extortion.
Will there actually be a system in place to handle that? That's my biggest worry.
you should punish "waiting for customers" by sellers too.
Waiting for customers on the seller's side is technically illegal and arrestable too.
But even though it's illegal on paper, arresting someone for "standing there a long time, getting approached by a man, negotiating, and going into a hotel" is a huge hassle.
Making the arrest happen the instant either party actually solicits the other is less of a hassle — like the old crackdowns on pink flyers (illegal prostitution ad flyers).
For her own safety too — male staff there will sort out any trouble, so isn't that better?
These days there are even shops that market themselves around having, let's say, seriously unattractive women, so there's a place for everyone.
Well, it's the era of work-life balance now…
Maybe people dislike being tied down by working at a fixed shop?
Mostly agree.
Working independently is obviously dangerous,
and some argue the state should manage it, but given how badly Japan's system skims off the top (middlemen taking cuts) these days, it's obvious that wouldn't work.
Having the yakuza manage it is the least-bad option.
Problem customers get thrown out, and they even do STI testing.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Nearly 70 years since it was enacted, the Anti-Prostitution Law has long been criticized for a structure that treats women more as targets of crackdowns than as people to be protected. What’s new about this report is that it proposes introducing regulation on “buyer” solicitation, which until now carried no penalty at all. Under the current law, only sellers’ solicitation is subject to enforcement, leaving buyers effectively free to act with impunity. In the thread, cautious voices arguing that punishing only buyers would simply drive the trade underground clashed with more optimistic views holding that cutting off demand would make supply disappear too. On the practical side of enforcement, some worried that merely being approached could be exploited as material for blackmail. It’s worth noting — since this point is easy to misunderstand — that whether to abolish penalties for sellers altogether is being discussed in a separate framework and was not decided by this report. The report itself is only at the stage of encouraging consideration of an amendment bill; the legal revision itself has not been finalized.
*This article is composed as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “Anti-Prostitution Law overhaul: New regulation on “buyer” solicitation planned — panel report, amendment under consideration.”
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