Chris

Today was the first day we dealt with the prostitution piece face to face. As a team we did learn some information before our trip and have met with a group here who have further explained the complexities of this issue in Japan. Today, seeing this issue in an area of Japan known for its higher "class" clients was definitely this most difficult part of this trip thus far. As I knew, it would be one thing to learn about the sex trade/prostitution and it would be another things to see everything up close. There was not much in action one could say in this area however, seeing how many places their were was something I was not prepared for. It was one place after another beside each other and in the alley ways. All the windows were shut off and their men standing in front of each door keeping their eyes on us. It was a dark feeling when you came up to the endless street of buildings with high end vehicals everywhere while catching a glimps of some what it looked like, highclass business men, coming in and out of the buildings while the men in the front covered their faces. As we walked past place after place and making eye contact and even greeting some of the men at door as one or two of them looked me up and down was the most difficult of all. In those moments I only felt on the smallest scale the dehumanizing feeling the women inside those buildings were dealing with every day. The feeling that you were a mere object-something to be bought and sold. The final hit to the day was when we were sitting across from some of the buildings was when the police drove by us and seemed to be more interested in us than what was going on inside the buildings, making it even more clear that these girls have no real protection from danger of what they do.