All rights reserved. Printed in the Unted States of America. It was edited by Regan E. Wilder Taylor, legal and policy director for Human Rights Watch, provided legal review. This report would not have been possible without the assistance of a number of individuals and organizations in Japan and Thailand who provided us with essential information and support. We would also like to thank the many individuals including several Japanese and Thai government officials whose cooperation was critical to our research.
These include the many courageous Thai women who shared with us their experiences in Japan and back home. It is hoped that through their testimonies, other women, governments and the international community will have more information securing opportunities for safe interventions and redress in the future. Miew 1 had spent more than two months working as a "hostess" in a "dating" snack bar, serving drinks at the bar and accompanying clients to nearby hotels to provide sexual services.
Her manager confiscated her passport and warned her that if she tried to escape, she would be followed and caught by Japanese gang members or police. She was housed under constant surveillance in an apartment next door to the bar, where a motion sensitive light outside the door ensured that she could not go outside unnoticed.
Thip came to Japan in March , having been promised a job as a waitress in a restaurant where she could save money. But when she arrived she was told that she owed 4. Thip escaped after working fifteen to sixteen-hour days, every day, for two weeks.
From this amount, Thip was expected to pay 34, yen a day for rent and protection money. This meant that she had to serve eighteen clients each day before any earnings were applied toward her debt. Miew and Thip are among the thousands of women in Thailand who accept offers to work in Japan each year in the hope of providing a better livelihood for themselves and their families.
