The Economist - USA (2019-11-02)

The EconomistNovember 2nd 2019 Asia 35

1

T

hroughout her20s, Yayoi Matsunaga
was groped, almost daily, on packed
rush-hour trains going to and from work.
Three decades later, she discovered that
her friend’s daughter was being molested
on her commute to high school. The teen-
ager, after fruitless talks with the police
and railway companies, decided to hang a
sign from her bag that read: “Groping is a
crime. I will not cry myself to sleep.” The
groping stopped immediately. Inspired,
Ms Matsunaga launched a crowdfunding
campaign in 2015 to create badges with the
same message. They proved as effective as
the sign: nearly 95% of users stopped expe-
riencing groping on public transport, ac-
cording to a survey.
Recent years have seen a flurry of inno-
vations in the fight against groping—chi-
kan in Japanese—in addition to the many
train services that offer carriages which
only women can use, or have installed ceil-
ing cameras in the hope of catching mo-
lesters on film. Nari Woo and Remon Ka-
tayama of qccca, a startup, have launched
“Chikan Radar”, an app that enables users
to report groping and thus see where it is
common. Since its launch in August, 981
cases have been reported across Japan. The
Tokyo Metropolitan Police have also
created an app, “Digi Police”, that, when ac-
tivated, screams “Stop it!” and produces a
full-screen message that says: “There is a
molester. Please help.” Shachihata, a com-
pany that sells personal seals, has devel-
oped a stamp that allows victims to mark
their attackers with invisible ink, which
can be detected under ultraviolet light. A
trial run of 500 anti-groping stamps, priced
at ¥2,500 ($23), sold out within 30 minutes.
There were 2,943 reported cases of grop-
ing in Japan in 2017, mostly in Tokyo. The
true number of victims is undoubtedly far
higher. Surveys suggest that half or more of
female commuters have experienced it, al-
though only 10% of victims report the
crime to police. Some hold back out of fear
and embarrassment; others because they
do not want to be late for school or work.
“We are socialised to think that groping is
not a big deal,” says Ms Woo.
Groping has long been trivialised as a
nuisance rather than a form of sexual as-
sault, says Masako Makino of Ryukoku
University. Offenders face up to six months
in prison or fines of up to ¥500,000. (The
potential sentence rises to ten years if vio-
lence is involved.)

Itdoesnothelpthatthemediatendto

focusonstoriesaboutmenwhohavebeen

falselyaccusedofgroping.A bookandfilm

abouta manunjustlyaccusedofmolesting

a schoolgirlbecamea hitin2007.Insur-

ancefirmsprovidepoliciesthatdefraythe

costtocommutersoffightingaccusations

ofgroping.ButMsMatsunaga,whonow

runsanorganisationcalledtheGroping

Prevention Activities Centre, remains

hopeful:“Ibelievethatwewillbeableto

eliminategroping.” 7

TOKYO
Commuters are taking the law into
their own hands

Fighting groping in Japan

Pervert alert

Invisibleinkattheready

T

here wasjubilation in August in Rish-

ton, a town in the bit of the Fergana Val-

ley that lies in Uzbekistan, when the gates

of a nearby border checkpoint with Kyrgyz-

stan were unlocked for the first time in al-

most seven years. The opening reduced the

length of the journey to Sokh, an island of

Uzbek-governed territory surrounded by

Kyrgyzstan, from 150km to 50km. As the

crossing was reopened, officials from both

countries waxed lyrical about a renewed

spirit of fraternity. Kyrgyz and Uzbeks—

both Turkic-speaking, Muslim peoples—

are “like a bird with two wings”, mused Ak-

ram Madumarov, the governor of the prov-

ince on the Kyrgyz side of the border. “If

one wing is missing, the bird cannot fly.”

The next day, the bird’s wings were

clipped as the border gates were slammed

shut again. In early September the road

leading out of Rishton towards Sokh ended

in a tangle of barbed wire, the Uzbek flag

fluttering forlornly rather than festively.

“The Kyrgyz are our friends and brothers,”

said a cheery Uzbek border guard patrol-

ling the closed frontier, who could not ex-

plain why it was sealed. Officials have un-

convincingly blamed divergent

food-safety standards.

Indeed, for all the talk of brotherly love,

perhaps a more revealing moment came

two weeks later, when a shoot-out at an-

other border post in the Fergana Valley, be-

tween Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, left four

border guards dead. That was the third fatal

incident on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border this

year. Three villagers have been killed in two

clashes near another Fergana Valley ex-

clave, Vorukh, a Tajik-governed territory

encircled by Kyrgyzstan. This is one of nine

pockets of land in the valley that are ruled

by one country but surrounded by another

(see map).

For most of the 20th century the borders

that divide the Fergana Valley today were

merely internal administrative boundaries

within the Soviet Union. Ordinary people

could travel more or less freely between So-

viet republics, to visit relatives, say, so it

mattered little that the lines sliced up the

region haphazardly. Although Soviet my-

thology holds that Stalin designed the car-

tographical crazy quilt to undermine Cen-

tral Asian solidarity, in practice the

divisions were the result of horse-trading

by local power-brokers keen to keep partic-

ular locations in their fiefs. In addition, ev-

ery Soviet republic was supposed to have a

population of at least 1m. The result was

meandering frontiers that do not even fol-

low the region’s already muddled ethnic di-

visions. Sokh, for instance, although part

of Uzbekistan and encircled by Kyrgyzstan,

is peopled mostly by Tajiks.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,

the notional boundaries became firm bor-

ders. Herdsmen were suddenly cut off from

their pastures and farmers from their

wells. Border conflicts became, and re-

main, fairly common. They erupt over

seemingly petty matters—the placing of

electricity poles, say—the cause of the

dust-up that led to the closure of the border

crossing near Rishton in 2013. It does not

RISHTON

Convoluted and disputed boundaries

are hampering regional integration

Central Asia’s borders

Stalin’s splatter

Sokh

Barak

Vorukh

TAJIKISTAN

UZBEKISTAN

KYRGYZSTAN

Tashkent

Rishton

Fergana

Fergana

Valley

Osh

75 km