[TinyRedLeaf]

Japan launches anti-groping campaign on trains

Tokyo (Sept 14): Tokyo Metropolitan Police this week launched a crackdown on gropers who have long molested women on the city's busy subway network during rush hour, an official said on Tuesday.

The police have deployed teams of uniformed officers to platforms and plain-clothes officials aboard trains to catch men who fondle women or try to take revealing photographs of them.

More than 100 high school girls, wearing school uniforms with short skirts, have joined the week-long campaign, carrying a banner that reads "Groping is contemptible. We don't forgive it!"

"We want to get on trains safely!" they shouted in unison as passengers walked by on Monday at Ikebukuro, one of the busiest stations in the Japanese capital.

According to police statistics, there were roughly 1,600 reported incidents of groping in Tokyo last year. Nearly half occurred during the morning rush hours between 7am and 10am. Over 70 per cent of incidents took place on trains, with another 10 per cent taking place on platforms or within stations. Nearly 50 per cent of victims were in their 20s, and around 35 per cent were teenagers.

Police said the number of incidents is increasing, and there have already been nearly 1,000 reported cases of groping or photos being taken up skirts in the first half of this year.

A 23-year-old man arrested in Tokyo earlier this year for touching a high-school student told the police that he had chosen the Siakyo Line to carry out his attack because it had received high marks on a bulletin board dedicated to gropers.

According to the Yomiuri newspaper, the man told police that he had used a website to work out the most effective methods for molesting women and "wanted to confirm" if they were effective.

- JAPAN TODAY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, TELEGRAPH.CO.UK