Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, a special rapporteur of the United Nations on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, visited Okinawa from Oct. 22 to 24th for an investigation about child prostitution and pornography in Okinawa. Before coming to Okinawa, she had visited Tokyo and Osaka for the same purpose.

In an interview at the prefectural government office on Friday, Buquicchio explained that the reason for selecting Okinawa as one of the regions to investigate was that she would like to see how the law and policy for preventing children from suffering from sexual crimes would work in a place that is far away from the central government.

During his stay, Buquicchio visited an orphanage facility and said, “I was surprised to hear that there are, as of now, no children who entered the facility because of a sexual crime. But at the same time, in fact, there is child sex business visible all over the island. I would like to research further to find out if there is a system or structure for victims of sex crimes to report.”

Buquicchio is scheduled to compile the final report on the results of her investigation next March.

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