Japan’s train gropers still prowl as women-only carriages turn 25

Mariko was a teenager the day she found herself alone in a near-empty carriage with a man who sat across from her, exposed himself and began to masturbate. Terrified that fleeing or crying out might provoke something worse, she fixed her gaze elsewhere and waited for the next station. “There was nothing I could do,” said Mariko, now 33, who asked that her family name not be published. “I was terrified that he might attack me, so I kept quiet.” The memory has never entirely left her. It still affects the carriages she chooses, the hours she travels and precisely where she stands – in every sense – in Japan’s latest argument over women-only trains. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the formal reintroduction of women-only carriages on Japan’s rail network – they were previously a feature in the post-war period before being discontinued in 1973 in favour of priority seating – and the Mainichi newspaper chose the occasion to ask aloud, on June 5, whether they are still necessary. Some men say they are not: that reserving carriages for women during peak hours amounts to discrimination. Mariko’s answer is unambiguous. “I always try to use a women-only carriage,” she said. “It means I can relax and not always be wondering if the person who just bumped into me did it on purpose.” “It’s unfortunate, of course, that we need these carriages, but that is not the fault of women.” A violent legacy The chikan, a Japanese term for the gropers who prey on women in crowded trains, have prowled the country’s rail network for generations. Japan’s first women-only carriage appeared in Tokyo as early as 1912, only to be phased out decades later. For most of the 20th century, the problem was largely met with silence: from victims, from bystanders, from railway operators and the state alike. That silence was violently broken in November 1988. On Osaka’s Midosuji Line, a 20-year-old woman intervened when she witnessed two men harassing a fellow passenger. The men turned on her, forced her off the train and took her to a nearby construction site, where they beat and raped her. Not a single passenger or station worker stepped in, despite the woman’s obvious distress. Her attackers were each sentenced to just three and a half years in prison. There was an immediate outcry, yet it still took 12 years – and countless acts of sexual violence, most of them never reported – before women-only carriages were formally reintroduced in March 2001. Today, 31 operators run them across 91 lines nationwide. The carriages have not ended the problem, however. In the first six months of 2025, 606 harrassment incidents were reported to police in Tokyo alone, with 70 per cent occurring on trains and 30 per cent of victims being teenage girls. That is almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg: an earlier Cabinet Office study found that 80 per cent of assault victims never went to the police, most citing embarrassment or a fear of not being believed. “For the men, it is a kind of game,” said Chisato Kitanaka, an associate professor of sociology at Hiroshima University and a government adviser on gender issues. For the men, it is a kind of game … They get a thrill from doing something sexual in a public place Chisato Kitanaka, sociology professor Though sometimes dismissed as opportunistic criminals, chikan are actually coldly calculating, according to Kitanaka. In the second week of January each year, when Japan’s rail network is awash with young students taking university entrance exams, the molesters flock to lines used by exam candidates – knowing that most will stay silent rather than risk missing their test through police questioning. Victims are also held back from reporting assaults by legal uncertainty: unsure whether what happened to them constituted a crime, or afraid of being accused of mistaking accidental contact for assault. Experts say the chikan understand those doubts and exploit them. Guarded optimism Despite all this, Kitanaka is guardedly optimistic for the future. Anti-groping campaigns by police and women’s rights groups, apps that allow silent incident reporting and security cameras installed in some carriages have all helped raise awareness of the problem. She believes changing attitudes among younger Japanese may prove to be the decisive blow. “These days there are posters in every station telling people to report an incident, whether they are a victim or a bystander, and I think that message is getting through,” she said. “Younger people today are less willing to put up with this sort of behaviour, there is the sense that it is completely wrong … most young people who saw something happening would intervene.” Yoshitsugu Hayashi, a professor of railway transport policy at Chubu University, sees no prospect of women-only carriages disappearing any time soon. “Too many men behave badly,” he said. “Operators have no choice but to take measures to protect them [women] … Unless we see a big change in how men behave, then I do not believe the train companies would feel comfortable taking them [the carriages] away.” On Monday, Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department launched a summer campaign at Shinjuku station – one of the world’s busiest transport hubs – promoting the “Digi Police” app, which lets victims alert officers without uttering a word. Kitanaka welcomed the police operations, awareness campaigns and harsher penalties apparently being imposed by the courts against chikan, but she doubted whether changing men’s behaviour would be so simple. “I do not know if that is going to be enough to stop a man doing this,” she said. “If he thinks there is a chance he can get away with groping or taking photos up a woman’s skirt, then the problem is going to persist.” For Mariko, changing attitudes offer some small comfort. But every time she boards a train, she still finds herself asking the same question she did as a terrified teenager: which carriage offers the best chance of arriving safely?

Japan’s train gropers still prowl as women-only carriages turn 25

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Critics question the necessity of safe zones for women. Passengers say a culture of ‘chikan’ abuse makes them vital

Critics question the necessity of safe zones for women. Passengers say a culture of ‘chikan’ abuse makes them vital