Prostitution in Japan has existed throughout the country's history. While the Prostitution Prevention Law of states that "No person may either do prostitution or become the customer of it", loopholes, liberal interpretations and a loose enforcement of the law have allowed the Japanese sex industry to prosper and earn an estimated 2. 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.
These mistaken assumptions were due to the Indian state of Goa being a central base for the Portuguese East India Company at the time, and due to a significant portion of the crew on Portuguese ships being Indian Christians. Hundreds of Japanese people, especially women, were sold as slaves. 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 , [ 4 ] and India , where there was a community of Japanese slaves and traders in Goa by the early 17th century.
In , syphilis started to appear in Japan, likely because of Japanese prostitutes having sex with Chinese sailors. In Sakai and Hakata ports, Japanese brothels had already been patronized by Chinese visitors far before Europeans came to Japan. When the Europeans Nanbanjin came to Japan, they too patronized Japanese prostitutes. Pleasure quarters were walled and guarded for taxation and access control. The opening of Japan and the subsequent flood of Western influences into Japan brought about a series of changes in the Meiji period.
In , the Japanese Government promulgated Ordinance No. The restriction neither reduced the total number of prostitution nor granted more liberty to women. Instead, prostitution thrived under the Meiji government. Due to the development of the modern transportation system, the demand and the supply of prostitution increased, and the female population drastically increased.
Rather than improving human rights or liberty, the legislation intended to facilitate government revenue. The prostitution industry contributed a large part of government revenue from the late Tokugawa period to the Meiji period. Karayuki-san was the name given to Japanese girls and women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who were trafficked from poverty stricken agricultural prefectures in Japan to destinations in East Asia , Southeast Asia , Siberia Russian Far East , Manchuria , and India to serve as prostitutes and sexually serviced men from a variety of races, including Chinese, Europeans, native Southeast Asians, and others.
