The Anti-Prostitution Law and the Demise of Yoshiwara - Postwar to High Economic Growth Period

The Anti-Prostitution Law and the Demise of Yoshiwara - Postwar to High Economic Growth Period

Postwar Japan was undergoing a major transformation under the social turmoil caused by the defeat in the war and the occupation policy. As part of its democratization policy, the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces (GHQ) viewed the public prostitution system and the special comfort facility associations (RAA) that had spread during the war as problematic, and urged a shift from sex control to a focus on women's rights. Following this trend, the Anti-Prostitution Law was passed in 1956, and the Yoshiwara brothels were officially abolished. The public prostitution system that had existed since the Edo period came to an end, and Japanese society entered a new phase of sexuality and human rights.

At the same time, however, the abolition also meant a shift in local industry and culture that had continued for a long time. Yoshiwara did not immediately disappear. Although the "red line" had ostensibly disappeared, the reality was that the "blue line" of illicit business spread throughout the region, highlighting the gap between the abolition of the system and the reality.

From the late 1950s to the 1960s, Japan entered a period of rapid economic growth and rapid urbanization. Yoshiwara, too, was transformed from a brothel to a pleasure district, and new forms of the sex industry spread. Although the Anti-Prostitution Law upheld the principle of protecting women's human rights, in reality it resulted in the survival of the sex industry in a different form. In this sense, the demise of Yoshiwara symbolized the triple contradiction of Japan's modernization, the advancement of human rights awareness, and the persistence of the sex industry.