Taiwan deports mother of Thai girl allegedly forced into Japan sex work

TOKYO - A Thai woman

suspected of coercing her teenage daughter into sex work

in a high-profile case in Tokyo was deported from Taiwan on Dec 22 for prostitution-related offences and violating immigration laws, the Taiwanese authorities said.

The woman entered Taiwan from Thailand under a visa-free arrangement and was found to have violated a law regulating prostitution and overstayed her permitted period of stay, the immigration agency said. The police had detained her and transferred her to immigration custody.

In the Japanese investigation, the girl, then 12, came to Japan with her mother in late June and is believed to have been left on her own to perform sex work at a private-room massage parlour in Tokyo’s Yushima district, the police said.

The teen is believed to have served about 70 customers between June and August. All her earnings, totalling more than 600,000 yen (S$4,945), were kept by the Japanese man who ran the shop, and the amount, minus the shop’s share, was sent to her mother, according to the Japanese police.

She was then made to work at another store after leaving the first, before contacting the Immigration Services Agency for help in September, the police said. KYODO NEWS