TOKYO (AFP): A Japanese prosecutor who publicly accused her boss of rape condemned her office on Tuesday for failing to protect victims, after it rejected her request for an independent probe into harassment within the organisation.
Very few women in Japan speak out about sexual assault but Hikari (not her real name) came forward in 2024 to accuse Osaka's then top prosecutor of raping her six years earlier.
Kentaro Kitagawa, head of the Osaka District Public Prosecutor's Office, was arrested and admitted the assault but later withdrew his statement, saying the sex was consensual.
Hikari has made a request to the justice ministry and the prosecutors' office that a third-party panel be set up to investigate cases involving others in the legal profession, and to implement measures to prevent harassment.
Hikari has previously said she was "certain that there are other instances of harassment and additional offences" besides those involving her.
But they said they would "refrain from responding" as Hikari also filed a suit against the state last month, seeking compensation.
"Whenever a public body or a company is involved in a scandal, they set up an independent committee to rectify the situation immediately and ensure (harassment) never happens again," Hikari told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday.
The prosecutors' office "conceals crimes committed by its own members and abandons victims, all in the name of protecting the organisation", she added.
"This should never happen. After all, the work of the prosecution service is directly linked to the lives and safety of the public."
Public records show that 21 people at prosecutors' offices have been disciplined for sexual violence in the past 16 years, according to Hikari.
Before filing her case in 2024, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Hikari says people close to Kitagawa, especially an assistant prosecutor -- whom Hikari says is his lover -- spread malicious rumours.
These included identifying her as the victim -- her name had not been made public -- and that she had been attracted to Kitagawa, consented to sex and was not drunk.
She has been on leave ever since and has been seeing a psychiatrist.
Hikari filed a criminal complaint against the assistant prosecutor in 2025, but the Osaka prosecutor's office dismissed it, only imposing a reprimand.
Hikari has said she was not used to drinking strong alcohol and lost her memory halfway through an office gathering in 2018.
The next thing she knew, she said, she was in Kitagawa's home and was being raped.
Hikari kept quiet after it happened, as Kitagawa had pleaded with her not to go public, saying it would be a damaging scandal for the prosecutor's office, she said, and even threatened to kill himself. -- AFP
