Prostitutes move from Osaka alley after it was painted yellow

An alley in Osaka's Kita Ward is decorated with illustrated stickers after it was painted yellow on Dec. 10. (Sakiko Kondo)
OSAKA—A simple change in scenery has led to a dramatic decrease in prostitutes soliciting customers in a narrow alley running through the Taiyujicho district of Osaka's Kita Ward.
Masafumi Fujino, 79, head of a local crime prevention association branch, said he has seen 10 or more prostitutes in the alley about a 10-minute walk from JR Osaka Station.
However, after the alley was painted yellow in December last year, the number of streetwalkers decreased by 90 percent, local authorities said.
The color scheme is based on the 'nudge theory,' in which subtle environmental changes can coax people to willingly modify their behavior.
In the Osaka case, the switch to yellow made the women feel uncomfortable standing on a conspicuous surface.
Police are also pushing longer-term solutions, such as helping the women leave the business for good.
SURGE AFTER PANDEMIC
The alley is lined with hotels and restaurants, and passers-by can enter the hotels without attracting attention thanks to poor visibility.
The number of prostitutes there sharply increased after the COVID-19 pandemic. Some residents grew so weary of the change in their neighborhood that they moved out of the area, Fujino said.
Since summer 2023, officers at the Sonezaki Police Station have sent papers to prosecutors on more than 30 women suspected of violating the Anti-Prostitution Law in the area.
Despite the arrests, the women kept returning to the alley to solicit customers.
'There was a limit when all we could do was to conduct crackdowns,' Ryu Kitagawa, then chief of the community safety division at the police station, recalled. 'It was like playing a cat-and-mouse game.'
The National Research Institute of Police Science suggested that the police station employ the nudge theory.
Police officers and local residents painted a 100-meter stretch of the alley in yellow in December. Illustrated stickers designed by students at a local vocational school also decorate the alley.
Osaka prefectural police have surveyed the alley four times a day. The results showed an average of 7.43 women solicited customers in the week before the alley was painted yellow. The maximum number was 17.
One week after the paint job, the figure dropped to zero.
In one week two months later, the average was 0.86, with a maximum of four, representing a 90-percent decrease.
NO FUNDAMENTAL SOLUTION
Local residents welcome the visual revamp, saying the alley has become easier to walk through.
But authorities realize this is not a fundamental solution to prostitution.
According to prefectural police, women are pushed into street prostitution after becoming debt-ridden.
A survey conducted by the Sonezaki Police Station covering 28 women suspected of prostitution showed their average age was 24.4 years old, and more than 60 percent of them were saddled with debts to host clubs.
One of them said she was struggling to make ends meet, and that streetwalking was more lucrative than working at a sex parlor.
'An approach that focuses on making women move away from areas where they solicit customers is something of a stopgap measure,' Takeshi Haraguchi, a professor of social geography at Kobe University graduate school, said about the painted alley. 'We need to think about why women have to stand there.'
He said homeless people and other socially vulnerable groups have been removed from urban areas where international conferences, the Olympics and other large-scale events have been held.
'I think the same goes for the latest countermeasure against customer solicitation implemented ahead of the Osaka Kansai Expo,' he added.
In spring 2024, the Sonezaki Police Station started making efforts to help street prostitutes leave the trade.
After the investigation is concluded, police will escort women to a support organization run by a municipal government if they want such help.
They have connected at least one woman to the right service, according to the station.
'We want to introduce more active countermeasures, which are not limited to crackdowns but also include establishing a system where women can receive necessary support,' an officer said.

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