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…

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“There was nothing I could do,” said Mariko, now 33, who asked that her family name not be published.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.

A woman walks through a corridor at Ginza railway station in Tokyo. Photo: AFP

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.

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