ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the extent of sexual abuse and hostile environments in Japanese educational institutions. Interview data from study participants reveal a worrying picture of widespread abusive practices and a lack of reform. Most worryingly, victims are often unable to come out of the shadows and pursue justice. Extended accounts of severe sexual assault by two university students, Rina and Song, are representative of many other survivors who have coped with trauma as lone individuals, in spite of the fact that they deserved comprehensive support from police, legal, and educational institutions. This chapter also asks if far-right ideologues exert excessive influence on Japanese education. It answers affirmatively due to a range of factors, such as the prohibition on comprehensive sexuality education which would empower young people to resist toxic behaviors by sexual harassers and in the banning of school textbooks that affirm the veracity of “comfort women” accounts of systematic sexual violence during the Asia-Pacific War. Despite protests from activist groups in Korea, China, and elsewhere, these groups remain determined to deny historical crimes and to use educational institutions as a means of “re-educating the masses” and returning the country to an idealized past of imperial greatness.
