YOKOHAMA

Provocatively dressed women stand in neon-lit glass booths trying to solicit customers. Amsterdam, Bangkok? No. This is just around the corner from Koganecho Station on the Keihin-Kyuko Line in Naka Ward here.

There are about 240 ``parlors'' under elevated railway tracks where prostitution more or less has been openly tolerated.

But in recent months, fewer neon lights have been twinkling in the darkness: that's because the police are cracking down.

On a recent evening, a woman in a tight miniskirt offered to entertain this reporter for 30 minutes. ``Just 10,000 yen,'' she promised. The woman was from Thailand and spoke little Japanese.

Each parlor is no wider than about two meters.

A multitude of signs indicate that refreshments are also served. Indeed, some booths have a counter big enough to seat three or four people.

Upstairs rooms apparently are used for prostitution.

However, everything changed after Nov. 17 when National Police Agency Director-General Iwao Uruma inspected the neighboring entertainment district of Isezakicho.

Around midnight the following day, the Kanagawa prefectural police and officers of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau conducted a joint raid on Koganecho's red-light district.

Two foreign women were arrested in connection with Immigration Control Law violations.

That night, most of the parlors were closed. Someone must have tipped off the women that a raid was on, said an employee of a nearby restaurant.

A neighborhood resident noted that the prostitution business had weathered two major crises since the end of World War II.

One was the enforcement of the Anti-Prostitution Law in 1958 and the other concerned large-scale police raids in 1990. In both cases, women quickly disappeared from the streets and the parlor lights remained turned off.

Before long, though, the lights came back on.

``Even though the police have shut down all the parlors this time, I am sure the women will come back sooner or later,'' the man said.

The Kanagawa prefectural police estimates there are about 500 women, mainly from Thailand and China, working in the red-light district.

Some of the foreign women knew before coming to Japan that they would be forced to work as prostitutes.

Brokers often cheat the women, telling them they will work in Japan as waitresses. But when they arrive, they find themselves burdened with several million yen or so in so-called travel fees that they have to work off. Prostitution is their usual way out.

At a news conference in December, prefectural police chief Shigeo Ito vowed to eradicate all the parlors.

``It is obvious that they are engaged in prostitution. It is not suitable for Yokohama,'' he said.(IHT/Asahi: January 10,2005)