Tokyo
Ayaka was six years outdated when she was first upskirted.
Her swimming instructor, a person who focused children for over a decade, took illicit images and movies of her genitals. He’d then share the pictures on a Telegram group with different pedophiles, who had been so grateful for the content material that they referred to as him “god.”
Ayaka’s father Suzuki – each names have been modified for privateness – solely realized his daughter had been focused when the police referred to as two years in the past. Her face and identify appeared in among the photographs, making her simply identifiable.
“My wife and I encouraged her to join that swimming school. We thought it would be a fun experience for her,” he advised NCS.
“I feel ashamed that I put my daughter in that situation. I feel angry toward the man who committed the crime. I can never forgive him.”
Japan’s upskirting disaster
Ayaka is much from alone. She’s considered one of numerous victims of upskirting and voyeuristic pictures in Japan, a criminal offense that’s long plagued the nation.
Warning posters incessantly line practice stations and public buildings in Japan. All smartphones bought within the nation are required to emit a shutter sound when taking images and movies, an business measure designed to discourage covert pictures. In 2023, Japan additionally launched a nationwide regulation towards “photo voyeurism” as a part of a broader overhaul of its intercourse crime laws. Before then, such circumstances had been prosecuted beneath a patchwork of native ordinances that various throughout the nation.
Despite years of efforts to curb the crime, it stays considered one of Japan’s most typical intercourse offenses. Police made 9,237 arrests for voyeurism offenses nationwide in 2025, the best quantity on document. Authorities attribute a part of the rise to the brand new regulation, which expanded the scope of offenses. The ubiquity of smartphones has additionally made the crime simpler than ever to hold out and repeat.
But what’s altering is who’s committing it.
While perpetrators have historically been adults, a rising quantity are children themselves. Police knowledge reveals reported voyeurism circumstances involving minors surged almost sixfold in 2024 in comparison with the earlier 12 months – and rose once more in 2025.
“I was shocked to learn this was happening in schools,” cybersecurity skilled and youngster rights activist Sumire Nagamori advised NCS. “The perpetrator can be a classmate, and the images can end up online.”
In chatrooms seen by NCS on social media platforms Telegram and Discord, customers submit “teasers” of kid sexual abuse supplies. One video advertises entry to an extended clip of a boy toddler being abused for lower than three {dollars}. Some of the customers say they are keen to take images of their classmates or siblings, purporting that they are in center or junior highschool.
NCS reached out to Discord and Telegram for a press release on our findings.
Telegram mentioned its moderation techniques take away thousands and thousands of items of dangerous content material every month, together with non-consensual pornography. It additionally highlighted its “significant efforts” towards youngster sexual abuse materials, eradicating greater than 260,000 associated teams and channels in 2026 alone.
Discord didn’t reply.
Nagamori says a number of elements are driving this troubling pattern. Smartphones have given younger folks fixed entry to cameras and on-line content material, making it simpler for copycat habits to unfold.
“Young children are gaining access to digital devices before they are taught ethics or digital literacy,” she mentioned. “Before they can distinguish right from wrong, they already have tools that can be used to harm others.”
At Daisuke Nakamura’s clinic, the place the court-appointed psychotherapist treats folks convicted of voyeurism offenses, a rising variety of sufferers are minors.
“When I opened this clinic 15 years ago, most of my clients were middle-aged men,” he advised NCS. “Now, I see more junior high school, high school and university students.”
Some are even youthful.
“My youngest clients are 13 or 14 years old, and occasionally elementary school students come in,” he mentioned.
This pattern comes as specialists warn that Japan’s authorized framework has struggled to maintain tempo with the realities of digital sexual abuse.
Under present regulation, youngster sexual abuse materials is usually prosecuted beneath Japan’s Child Pornography Law. But critics say gaps stay—the regulation solely applies when a baby’s genitalia is seen, which means some types of sexual abuse content material can fall exterior its scope. Experts advised NCS these loopholes may end up in considerably lighter penalties for offenders.
Japan can be rolling out a brand new intercourse offender registry that permits employers in child-facing professions, reminiscent of colleges, to test whether or not potential workers have been convicted of kid sexual abuse offenses. But not like the United States, the general public can’t entry this database.
To higher perceive what drives a teenager to commit these crimes, NCS spent months trying to find prior offenders keen to talk about their expertise. Kimura, now 19, is one who agreed to talk. He’s additionally requested to make use of a pseudonym.
Kimura says his fascination with upskirting started on the age of 15, with pornography depicting staged situations. After months of watching it, he wished to strive it himself.
At 17, he says he focused his first sufferer: a lady using an escalator at a practice platform.
“After doing it without getting caught, and feeling that rush of excitement afterwards, I wanted to feel that again,” he advised NCS.
Over the next 12 months, he focused round 30 extra victims. He mentioned he solely stopped when the police discovered him trespassing onto personal property whereas making an attempt to steal somebody’s underwear from a clothesline.
“If I hadn’t got caught at the time, I might’ve raped someone within a year or two,” he admitted.
Kimura has since undergone necessary crime prevention packages and re-education, saying he deeply regrets what he’s accomplished.
“I feel really sorry… I’m able to live a normal life now, but I feel like I have to make sure I never forget what I did,” he mentioned.
Ayaka’s swimming teacher was sentenced to 4 years in jail after being convicted of secretly photographing a number of youngster victims. With half of that sentence already served, Suzuki fears the day he’s launched.
“People say Japan is very safe, but now I wonder how many of these crimes are happening in places we don’t see,” he mentioned.
For perpetrators, upskirting is a criminal offense dedicated in seconds, typically unnoticed. But for the numerous victims it violates, it leaves a everlasting digital scar—one Suzuki fears will hang-out Ayaka for years.
“While perpetrators can atone for their crimes, my daughter will have to live with these videos for the rest of her life,” he mentioned.
“I believe that children are a treasure not only for this country but for everyone. So I see it as our job to figure out how to protect them,” he mentioned.