Massage Parlor Owner Held in Suspected Human Trafficking of 12-Year-Old Thai Girl

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:57 JST, November 6, 2025

Police arrested a man in Tokyo on suspicion of making a 12-year-old Thai girl work at his massage parlor, it was announced on Thursday.

The Metropolitan Police Department arrested on Tuesday massage parlor owner, a 51-year-old resident of Chofu, Tokyo, on suspicion of violating the Labor Standards Law regulating the minimum age for labor.

The girl apparently had been left at the shop by her mother, who had come to Japan with her. Police suspect human trafficking occurred through an intermediary.

According to the police announcement, the owner is suspected of hiring the girl at his massage parlor in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, between June and July this year, knowing she was under 15 — the minimum age approved for employment under the law — and having her perform customer service duties including massage.

The girl came to Japan with her mother in June this year on a visa for a 15-day short-term stay. Her mother disappeared after leaving her at the shop, where police say the girl slept in the kitchen and was forced to provide sexual services to male customers.

Some of the girl’s earnings were transferred to an account of somebody linked to her mother, according to police. The mother left Japan in July.

The girl started to work at another shop in August. She sought help from the Tokyo Regional Immigration Services Bureau in Minato Ward, Tokyo, in September and was placed under protection.

The girl reportedly told the police that her mother told her to work and wait at the shop until she came back to pick her up. She also said that she wanted to go home but that she thought her family back in her country wouldn’t be able to survive so she felt she had no choice but to endure.

Human trafficking is defined in the human trafficking protocol adopted by the United Nations in 2000 as acts such as transferring persons using violence for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor.

According to the Japanese government’s annual report on human trafficking countermeasures released in August, 66 victims were protected last year, up from 61 the previous year, with about 90% having suffered sexual exploitation. Of those, 41 were under the age of 18.