A Tier 2 country does not fully comply with the US's Trafficking Victims Protection Act minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking adopted in 2000, but is making significant efforts to do so. Japan does not have a comprehensive anti-trafficking law. In 2005, responding to international pressure, its criminal code was amended to prohibit the buying and selling of persons, and a variety of other criminal code articles and laws, could be used to prosecute trafficking offenses. Enforcement is lax.
In Japan, The Body Shop sponsors with ECPAT Japan a campaign to Stop Sex Trafficking of Children & Young People. For more information about human trafficking in Japan and Asia see the HumanTrafficking.org project by the Academy for Educational Development (AED).
Polaris Japan is a leader in highlighting human trafficking in Japan and providing care for its victims. They will hold their second Introduction to Human Trafficking seminar on July 30, 2013 at 7:30pm in Tokyo. Their last seminar attracted a large turn out.
July 30th happens to be the 6th Anniversary of the passage of the US Congress' 2007 Resolution 121 in support of the Comfort Women's struggle for recognition and justice. During Imperial Japan's 14-year war, the government organized and managed an extensive human trafficking system to provide women to its troops (and others) throughout the then-expanding Empire.
Internationally, the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) promotes the global fight on human trafficking, on the basis of international agreements reached at the UN. To date, 140 parties have signed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons especially Women and Children (neither Japan nor South Korea have acceded to this Protocol), which supplements the Palermo Convention against transnational organized crime.
UN.GIFT was launched in March 2007 by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the "guardian" of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and the Protocols thereto, assists States in their efforts to implement the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (Trafficking in Persons Protocol).
You can find the Japan chapter of the US State Department TIP Report by clicking on the next page
