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For
Japan, High-Tech Edge is Also a Headache
YOKOHAM,
Japan - Japan, a world leader in the mobile phone market, is
fast realising one downside of its high-technology edge: the
growing number of web-based ''date sites'' that encourage men
to date young girls by making contact through their handphones.
Under 'telekura'
or phone dating service offered by companies on the Internet,
men can pay a fee to register in order to have access to the
mobile phone numbers of schoolgirls.
Often, the
male callers arrange to meet the girls - who sign up voluntarily
and register their phone numbers - after telephone conversations.
'Telekura' is being highlighted as one of the ways that technology
- in this case the popularity of mobile phones -- can be used
to spread child pornography and commercial sex.
''It's
important to protect children because younger children are now
using the Internet," said Yoshinari Kokubo, a spokesman for
the Japan Internet Association who spoke at a workshop on 'telekura'
Monday at the Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children.
According
to the National Police Agency reports, 133 men were arrested
in Japan for child prostitution arranged through mobile phones
during the first six months of this year. The number for the
whole of last year was 40.
There are
now more than 2,500 dating sites on the Internet, many of them
featuring pretty young girls and inviting visitors to log on.
There are
currently 47 million mobile phone users in Japan, of which 40
million are connected to the Internet through their handphones,
according to statistics provided at the congress. Japan's population
is 120 million.
In a presentation,
the Japan Internet Association, a non-governmental organisation,
reported that one in three high school girls owns a mobile phone
that has Internet facilities.
In addition,
the survey indicates that 35 percent of these mobile phone owners
have logged into 'telekura' sites on the Internet and half of
them have met with their anonymous callers, when they were asked
for a date.
Many of
them explained they met the male caller out of a sense of thrill,
but not intending to provide sex. But the media reports several
cases of rape and even murder among the young victims, by men
they have met through their mobile phones.
Kokubo
said that because of the gravity of the problem, his organisation
is developing new ways to control the problem. A hotline developed
by his computer organisation is now accepting complaints and
encouraging a debate among victims of 'telekura'.
In fact,
many callers are young girls who ask how they can extricate
themselves from male friends made through the dating service.
Kokubo says he is now also developing new software to act as
a filter to protect children from anonymous callers to their
mobile phones.
