10,000 Women Filmed In Japan Hot Springs In 30 Years: Case Of Sheer Entitlement?

In a shocking case emerging from Japan, it has come to the world's notice that over ten thousand women were subjected to a breach of their privacy as they were filmed without their knowledge over a span of thirty years across the hot springs in the country. The Police have now made some arrests pertaining to the crime ring that was underway in the country all these years. The question is: How did the country let such a big ring happen without any accountability?

Japan’s police arrested 17 people in connection to a case where over ten thousand women were secretly filmed while bathing in hot springs across the country over three decades.

Japan Women Filmed In Hot Springs

The racquet came to light in 2021 the Shizuoka Police arrested Karin Saito, the mastermind behind the ring. While he identified all the others involved in the act, most of them got away from under the radar for a few years. It was proven that at least ten thousand women who bathed in the hot springs across the country for over thirty years were caught on camera by Saito and his men.

The 17 men involved in the act would often film women bathing and share explicit images and videos of the same among themselves and across the country. Another shocking news in the case arose when it was found that a few of the men involved worked as top executives across the country's big multinationals.

The police arrested them with charges under the law including nuisance prevention ordinances, illicit photography and pornography. As per reports, the accused are also suspected of being involved in child pornography.

The 50-year-old ringleader Saito disclosed to the authorities that he had started this racquet of taking pictures and videos of women secretly when he was 20 years old. It was later disclosed that most of the men arrested learned the techniques of taking high-quality pictures and videos from Saito himself.

Sheer ignorance and no accountability: How the culprits got away

The Police revealed that the men went under disguise to carry out these acts and hid over hundred metres away in the mountains from where they could film the women in secret. Saito revealed that these pictures and videos were shot over a hundred different locations in Japan.

How could this racquet be carried out in the country without the knowledge of authorities? How could these men, who held some top positions of executives, getaway for three decades without any accountability? How could explicit pictures and videos of over ten thousand women get circulated without any suspicion by the concerned regulations?

The sheer entitlement of the culprits who help positions of power used their power to push down any news circulating the case. They did not just hide evidence but also confidently carry out a crime and breached the privacy of thousands of women who were unaware of the same.

It's unbelievable when you read that the accused held screenings and got together to watch these pictures and videos of women they filmed secretly over thirty years without an ounce of culpability. Was it pure entitlement of carrying such a crime against the female gender without remorse or guilt because they consider themselves the superior gender to could do anything and not be held accountable? Or was it the power they believed they had over women they did not even know personally yet felt could deplete their lives forever? Or was it both?

It's infuriating, not surprising, that these men not just filmed women secretly but also held screenings to watch them and to top their crime, added subtitles to the videos during their get-togethers. The questions are too many, and the answers, unfortunately, are a few, which does no justice to the women who now would fear stepping in the hot springs again because what if their more creeps waiting behind the mountains to film them? The circle is never ending and to break the circle requires a systemic change of mindsets, stricter laws against crimes and definitely a structural change where men hold unaccountable entitlement over women.

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