I am a paid member of an online library John, if you'd
like to see the rest of these, I'll send them to you.
Pardon the site's horrible formatting.

A survey in Osaka reports 71 percent of respondents
were victims, similar to what I have seen must have
been Tokyo on the front page of a national newspaper.
The survey I read about, as I said, I believe focused
on young women, teens and twenties.

A government survey of unknown sample population or
location (but the article implies a national problem)
showed 47 percent of respondents have been victims.

During my search, but I do not have the quote handy,
reported only two percent of respondents sought justice
in the courts, whatever that means. Maybe two percent
of victims went to police, or maybe two percent of
claimed incidents made it to court.

"Compared to other sex offences I think that women as
well as men don't have much of a notion that this is a
crime," says Sergeant Kakisako. "There's a tendency
amongthese men to convince themselves that if a woman
doesn't say anything, she's enjoying it. The best thing
the victims can do for themselves is to speak up."

Are you beginning to believe there is a problem greater
than you will ever see or know, John? Are you ready to
try looking for the real Japan yet?

The Tokyo commuter who groped his way to celebrity
Date: 04-06-1997; Publication: Independent on Sunday;
Author: RICHARD LLOYD PARRY

[snip]

For the victims there is, of course, nothing funny
about it at all. Three years ago, a survey by women's
groups in Osaka found that 71 per cent of women
canvassed had been groped and that for many the effects
were lasting. Victims found themselves toonervous to
travel by train, and fearful of crowds. One student
stopped going to university after being molested
morning after morning, and feelings of shame and
self-disgust were encouraged by the fact that the most
successful groping is so subtle as tobe completely
deniable.

In the past, Japan's police did little to tackle the
problem, although that has changed with a concerted
campaign in Tokyo. The capital's two biggest stations,
Tokyo Central and Shinjuku, have permanent chikan
counselling corners, staffed by femaleofficers. For one
week earlier this year 70 officers were mobilised on
the Saikyo Line, the city' s most notorious, where half
of all reported groping incidents take place. Thirty of
them patrolled the carriages in plain clothes, and
bagged an average ofsix people a day. Of these a third
were charged, and the rest were released after their
misbehaviour had been reported to their families,
schools or employers.

"There are two types of chikan," says Yumi Kakisako, a
female police sergeant who works at the counselling
corner in Shinjuku station. "Some of them do it half by
stupid accident - when they're caught once, the shame
is so great that they'll never do itagain. But then
there are those who get a real pleasure from it, the
compulsive chikan, and they are harder to cure: we see
the same faces again and again." The Metropolitan
Police Agency is compiling figures on the number and
nature of chikan offencesfor use in future campaigns.

[snip]

Preliminary results suggest chikan range from
schoolboys to retired men and appear to have nothing in
common in terms of social background or employment
status. Their victims are equally diverse: although
most are between 15 and 25, the attraction theyhold for
their assailants seems to have little to do with what
they wear or the way they look.

The biggest unanswered question is why epidemic groping
should be such a peculiarly Japanese problem. Rush hour
trains in the cities certainly do become
claustrophobically crowded, but not so much more so
than in other countries. Samu Yamamoto puts itdown to
"the crazy attitude which Japanese men have to sex" -
and the ambiguous, covert nature of commuter groping
has its advantages in a society which is often content
to ignore what it cannot see, and where the pressure to
maintain outward harmonyoften makes it easier to suffer
in silence than speak out.

Indeed, the biggest factor may be the reluctance of
Japanese women to make a fuss. "Compared to other sex
offences I think that women as well as men don't have
much of a notion that this is a crime," says Sergeant
Kakisako. "There's a tendency amongthese men to
convince themselves that if a woman doesn't say
anything, she's enjoying it. The best thing the victims
can do for themselves is to speak up."

RICHARD LLOYD PARRY, The Tokyo commuter who groped his
way to celebrity. , Independent on Sunday, 04-06-1997,
pp 12.

RIGHTS-JAPAN: GROPING PROMPTS "WOMEN-ONLY" TRAIN CARS
Date: 05-04-2001; Publication: Inter Press Service
English News Wire; Author: STAFF

[snip]

A government survey on the issue last year showed that
47 percent of the respondents have experienced rail
molestation. In another survey taken seven years ago by
the Organization to Prevent Sexual Violence, a women's
group based in Osaka, many respondents expressed fear
and depression after being groped. Young victims
replied they could not trust men after their
experience. Some said they had to give up their jobs
because they developed an extreme fear of riding
trains. The survey also revealed only two percent of
molested women sought justice by taking their molesters
to Court. Most of the time, the victims just kept quiet
because they were frightened or ashamed. Others noted
that their fellow commuters offered no help.

[snip]

STAFF, RIGHTS-JAPAN: GROPING PROMPTS "WOMEN-ONLY" TRAIN
CARS. , Inter Press Service English News Wire,
05-04-2001