Prostitution in Japan - History

History

From the 15th century, Chinese, Koreans and other East Asian visitors frequented brothels in Japan.

This practice later continued among visitors from "the Western regions", mainly European traders who often came with their South Asian lascar crew (in addition to African crew members, in some cases). This began with the arrival of Portuguese ships to Japan in the 16th century, when the local Japanese people assumed that the Portuguese were from Tenjiku ("Heavenly Abode"), the Japanese name for the Indian subcontinent (due to its importance as the birthplace of Buddhism) and that Christianity was a new "Indian faith." These mistaken assumptions were due to the Indian state of Goa being a central base for the Portuguese East India Company and due to a significant portion of the crew on Portuguese ships being Indian Christians.

Portuguese visitors and their South Asian and African crew members often engaged in slavery in Japan, where they bought or captured young Japanese women and girls, who were either used as sexual slaves on their ships or taken to Macau and other Portuguese colonies in Southeast Asia, the Americas, and India, where there was a community of Japanese slaves and traders in Goa by the early 17th century. Later European East India companies, including those of the Dutch and British, were involved in prostitution while visiting or staying in Japan.