A Japanese city pilots a method to combat street prostitution
Osaka city authorities (Japan) painted a 100-meter-long road in the central Kita district yellow in December 2024. The reason for choosing bright colors for the road is to create a psychological effect to prevent prostitutes from working on the streets. The Straits Timesreported on January 5.
Official data from Osaka records that there are usually about 10 tachinbo on average, with tachinbo being the term used for street girls, working every night on this road before the paint change is implemented.
After the road was painted yellow, there were almost no signs of prostitutes here, according to the page Tokyo Weekender.
Still The Japan News Last year, Osaka police arrested 20 prostitutes suspected of violating the country’s anti-prostitution law.
The arrests were made while street girls enticed customers to buy sex in the above area.
However, despite police patrol measures, street prostitution still continues. Some residents had to move elsewhere because they could not endure such a negatively affected living environment.
By the end of last year, local authorities came up with the idea of painting the streets a new color to deal with prostitution ahead of the 2025 Osaka-Kansai International Exhibition.
According to a theory of behavioral economics, using eye-catching colors on the road will create a psychological effect, making it harder for people to stand on a road for a long time.
Besides being painted yellow, the road is also decorated with drawings of all kinds of colorful fish. People in the area hope this strategy will create positive effects for efforts to combat prostitution on the streets.
If successful, Japan can replicate road painting in places that are also notorious for street prostitution.
