Foreign women entering Japan on six-month visas have been forced to work in the country's sex industry. The government hopes new rules will solve the problem, writes Justin McCurry.

The neon sign describes the club as a "show venue", but the only people taking to the stage are crooning customers and their scantily-clad escorts. The entertainment that attracts office workers, elderly businessmen and middle-ranking gangsters to Shinjuku's red-light district in Tokyo is to be found at dozens of low tables, where women light cigarettes, serve watered-down spirits and fend off wandering hands. They are among the 80,000 Filipinas who entered Japan last year on six-month entertainment visas, ostensibly to work as singers and dancers. The reality is rather different: up to 90 per cent are forced to work as bar hostesses, masseuses or prostitutes in Japan's sex industry.

After years of ignoring their plight, Japan is about to tackle its appalling record on human trafficking with the introduction of tough visa regulations. Next week, foreign women will have to prove they have worked as entertainers overseas for at least two years or trained at a school for a similar period. The widely abused entertainer's licence currently used will no longer be acceptable.

A report last year by the US state department placed Japan on a par with Mexico and Laos for its failure to stem the trade in sex workers. According to the state department's latest report, published this week, up to 200,000 women are smuggled in annually to work in Japan's sex trade.

Tokyo hopes to ease international pressure with the introduction of a law later this year criminalising human trafficking. The current law protects only Japanese women from being trafficked overseas - a practice unheard of these days.

Hidenori Sakanaka, head of Tokyo's regional immigration bureau, has accused "weak-kneed" immigration officials of buckling under pressure from politicians with links to the sex industry.

"The problem is that there are businesses that make profits by exploiting women, and they are connected to lawmakers," he told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. He said entertainment visas had been used to make women "work in inferior conditions and even as prostitutes. The government has for many years neglected this."

However, the new visa regulations have provoked anger in the Philippines, where tens of thousands of families stand to lose a vital source of income. Last year, Filipinas in Japan sent home $258 million. A total of $8.5 billion in annual remittances from all Filipinos working abroad comprises 10 per cent of the country's income.

While the number of reported cases of trafficking in Japan is small - police say there were 46 in the first nine months of last year - campaigners say it represents a fraction of the real figure.

Tokyo has turned down calls by Manila to phase in the regulations over several years, in the hope that Japan will be removed from the list of countries on the trafficking list when the next US report is released in the spring.

"Of course the [ state department] trafficking report had an impact," said Shoichiro Okabe, a spokesman for the immigration bureau. "We are determined to take steps to improve the situation." Although officials in Tokyo say they will not impose a quota on the number of entertainer visas, as many as 70,000 Filipinas may be refused re-entry into Japan.

"The regulations may have a negative impact on women coming here legitimately, but in terms of tackling human trafficking, they're a step in the right direction," said Hiromasa Nakai of Unicef.

The debate has drawn attention to the plight of foreign women working in Japan's sex industry. Thais and Filipinas are being joined by Russians, Chinese, east Europeans and South Americans.

Their passports are often confiscated on arrival and they are forced to work - under the threat of violence - as prostitutes to pay back sums of up to 6 million yen to brokers and pimps. Women lured by promises of 200,000 yen a month as cabaret artists find themselves earning a fraction of that as bar hostesses who are also expected to have sex with customers.

Most of the women at the club in Shinjuku admitted having no dancing or singing qualifications, and doubted they would be able to return when their visas expired. None would admit to sleeping with customers, although several said that meeting again after hours was possible. "Mami", 20, said she had wanted to experience working in Japan. She shares a room with seven other women and works from early evening until 3am, seven days a week. "We get two days off a month, but I have never been outside Tokyo," she said. "I just stay indoors all day watching videos. I don't know if I'd want to come back even if I could."