Over at Mari’s blog, titled “Watashi to Tokyo,” written in English by a Japanese woman living and working in Tokyo, trying to explain her country to the world at large, there’s an interesting discussion by Mari about train gropers (chikan) and the side issue of false accusations in court.

I did not know the word “Molester”, we say “Chikan” in Japanese. Usually we have to be annoyed with sexual molester on the rush hour train. When I was a student the law that cracks down molesters was not strict, also girls were shy (this is true) to shout “here is a molester!” and also rush was worse than now, so morning train was really hellish for girls.
Now the law has changed, molesters will be jailed more than 6months, less than 7 years on obescenity charges. (or ordinance against disturbing the peace), We have women-only cars, and most of all girls are getting tougher. It means girls shout “here is a molester” or turns over a molester to police or train staff by herself at the scene. Here is a interesting post about molesters in Japan. Actually the irony is that we have false accusation issues, some cases fight over in court “it was on purpose or not”, some guy’s magazines and sites have “how to escape false accusation for molestation”, “self-defense 5 points on a train” etc.

Here is advice from a tabloid newspaper called “Yukan Fuji”

1. Don’t stand behind woman. especially you should skip beautiful woman.
2. If she misunderstands and glares down you, never look away. You should glare her back. There was a precedent that the testimony “he looked away, so I convinced he was a molester” was accepted in the court.
3. Unfortunately when you are misunderstood as a molester, you should never go to staff room on the train station with her, even thought she insists. The law of criminal procedure permits the immediate arrest by a private individual. If you follow her, it means you are arrested by her and she can turn you to the police. To take the best chance of cleaning yourself, you should leave the area after giving your contact address to her.

Mari adds: “My friends say they try to read a book having with both hands, or one hand in bad and the other holding on a strap. I’ m sorry to hear such cases, but as long as there are molesters, our annoyance won’t be over for both women and men. Actually Today I read silly news about a molester….orz. stupid.”

(via Watashi to Tokyo)