“Shihoko Fujiwara runs Lighthouse, a nonprofit for exploited children. She told CNN she once worked on a case where a predator used a cartoon to convince a child that sex abuse was normal. “So the pedophiles might bring the animation and say ‘this is how you practice with adults,’” she said.
Child abuse in Japan
While no link has been made between anime, manga and child abuse, Japan is facing a “serious” child abuse problem, according to a White Paper issued by the National Police Agency in March.
The paper said the number of child abuse victims jumped 20% between 2011 and 2012, and the number of victims, arrests and cases are at their highest levels since they started compiling statistics in 1999.
At the same time, the number of cleared child pornography crime cases rose to 1,596, the highest ever recorded, the paper said. Most – 85% – were Internet-related. The figures inspired the U.S. State Department to label Japan as an “international hub” for producing and trafficking child pornography.
The U.S. report noted that no national law addresses the “unfettered availability of sexual explicit cartoons, comics and video games, some of which depicted scenes of violent sexual abuse and the rape of children.
It added: ‘While the NPA continued to maintain that no link was established between these animated images and child victimization, other experts suggested children are harmed by a culture that appears to accept child sexual abuse.”
