A Japanese girl

Japanese women and girls, some as young as six or seven years old, were sold as prostitutes overseas, mainly in Southeast Asia. This was to help support their starving peasant families living in drought-ridden areas in southern Japan. The women worked at the ‘suteretsu’ (the brothel area in Malay Street) from the 1870s to 1920s. In 1921, a Japanese imperial decree prohibited brothel prostitution overseas. These women were recalled to Japan, which resulted in a steady decline of the ‘karayuki-san’ community in colonial Singapore.

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Album photographs