According to a police spokesman, since September 2004 and up to the present, the fraudster has arranged about 50 fictitious marriages, for each of which he received from the girls from 3 to 6 thousand dollars. Katsua himself is officially listed as the owner of waste household appliance disposal enterprises in Saitama and Chiba prefectures. The Japanese man was arrested after being charged with providing false information to municipal registration offices, as well as for specifying false purposes for the girls' arrival in Japan. Earlier, Katsua had already been prosecuted twice for arranging fictitious marriages, the police spokesman said.
Who seeks and finds a workplace for future hostesses, including those from former Soviet countries? And why specifically in a restaurant or casino? Today there are many companies that make money recruiting those who want to work abroad as 'consummatrices' or, in other words, hostesses. Their main task is to get the client to spend as much as possible while in the bar or restaurant, ordering maximum amounts of alcohol, juices, or fruits. 40% of the amount received goes into the hostess's pocket. The guaranteed salary for this position in Japan is $500. The girl gets it just for coming there. Everything else has to be earned. This is the so-called 'juice system' (sokovaya), where a girl's earnings depend on how much her client orders. The second way to raise the professional level of salary is to learn to dance. The client likes it when the girl sitting at his table behaves freely.
The girls work in Japanese nightclubs on a work visa. It is granted for six months with the right of renewal four times in a row. This allows them to work for up to two years, after which they can go on vacation. According to the rules, the girl's passport is taken away and she is given an identification card. This is a temporary residence permit indicating the first name, last name, and which club the girl works at.
Owners of Japanese entertainment establishments, interested in obtaining fresh labor, fill out a registration card at the firm, indicating exactly who is needed: height, weight, the girl's hobbies, religion, character. Then the manager selects suitable candidates from the database and from advertisements, and on the appointed day and time the 'buyer' comes again. There is a visual selection of the 'merchandise'.
After 5-10 girls are among the lucky ones admitted to the foreign table, the firm owner takes their questionnaires, copies of passports, other papers, and returns home. There he goes to the Ministry of Justice and explains that if European-type girls appear at his establishment, the quality of leisure and work capacity of the local male population will increase many times over. Officials of the relevant department review his application, the girls' documents, and issue him a certificate for visas for the future workers.
In the contract signed by the future hostess, it is strictly stipulated that alcohol, prostitution, and drugs are prohibited. But of course, it does not happen without them. Moreover, this is exactly what is implied when hiring a 'hostess', but not everyone realizes it. It is not surprising that from time to time girls run away. Usually such a runaway is lured away by some boyfriend.
The police, as best they can, try to counter the flow of those wishing to work in the Land of the Rising Sun in this 'specialty'. The law enforcement officers justify their actions by the fact that most of the newcomers sooner or later end up not in bars or restaurants, but satisfying the sexual needs of 'hot Japanese guys'. After the two-year permit to stay in Japan comes to an end, the girls begin to think about their future fate. At home, nothing awaits them in terms of career. And they have no other choice but to turn to Japanese 'benefactors of the highway'.
Having paid several thousand 'greenbacks', earned by hard work, for fake documents, the girls fall into another dependence. Now they become hostages of local dealers. Despite the fact that prostitution has been formally banned in Japan since the 1950s, the entertainment industry is unthinkable without professional women. The Japanese have long been accustomed to dividing them into three categories. For the hearth and procreation - a wife. For the entertainment of the soul - a geisha. And for the pleasure of the flesh - a beauty from the 'red-light' street. With the formal ban on prostitution, this oldest profession was taken over precisely by pseudo-geishas, or hostesses, that is, girls from bars and cabarets.
According to the National Police Agency, there are about 12,000 establishments in the country that provide paid sexual services. Massage parlors and Turkish baths serve as a very common cover for semi-legal brothels. The door to the room where the visitor is alone with the masseuse, according to the rules, should not be locked. It should also have a viewing window so that the administration can monitor order from the corridor. But if the girl, taking off the client's jacket, hangs it on the door, thus covering the window, it is a hint that we are talking about 'special services'.
Recently, masseuses from one of the seedy districts of Tokyo took the initiative to create a free trade union of sex industry workers for collective struggle to increase wages and improve working conditions. Employees of massage parlors, popular among tipsy revelers, have already entered into collective bargaining with employers and are preparing to hold a congress to officially adopt the program and charter of the trade union being established.
In Japan, there are only a few hundred real, certified geishas. And these highly paid professionals are unlikely to respond to a call for labor solidarity. However, the main component of a free union of sex industry workers could be hundreds of thousands of pseudo-geishas, i.e., hostesses. Perhaps some of the arriving girls will be lucky. But most will sooner or later face a sad fate - being deported from the country. And they will end up in the hands of justice thanks to the efforts of the sex managers themselves: aged and 'worn-out' goods in the form of girls are unlikely to satisfy them for long.