Fukuoka yakuza employed 13-year-olds as hostesses

A Fukuoka yakuza gang employed 30 under-18’s to work as hostesses at its drinking establishments, 15 of them being junior high school students, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Sunday. The leaders of the yakuza gang have been arrested and are awaiting trial.

15 junior high schoolers, as young as 13-15 years at the time, were employed to work as hostesses at so-called “hostess bars” in Fukuoka City and Kurume, both in Fukuoka Prefecture, managed by a yakuza group affiliated with the Dojin-Kai, Kyushu’s largest “boryokudan” (criminal gang).

The yakuza gang’s leaders, spouses Yuichiro and Erina Ogami were arrested in April on the suspicion of having employed two junior high school students as hostesses. Documents seized by the police listed all 120 hostesses employed by the gang as over 18, but in reality 30 of them were younger than the legal requirement.

According to the police’s investigation, the girls were junior high school students from Fukuoka and its surrounding suburbs. The girls had been employed as hostesses from the summer of 2005 until March 2007, with the task of entertaining customers at drinking establishments with an hourly wage of 2500-2000 yen.

When the hostesses wanted to take a day off or quit, they were extorted by the yakuza to find a replacement, which lead to them to ask their friends, students younger than themselves (“kohai”) and even online friends, starting a chain reaction which lead to girls as young as 13 being employed, the police said.

The suspects started out in the hostess business 4 years ago. The man, Yuichiro Ogami, defended himself saying that as his hostess bars were extremely popular during weekends, he “was forced to employ junior high school girls” to assure he would be able to keep the establishments running smoothly.