Japan Talent Agents Held over Woman Forced into Porn

Three Japanese talent agents who allegedly forced a woman to appear in more than 100 pornographic videos have been arrested, a police spokesman and local media said Monday.

The suspects, including a 49-year-old executive at Tokyo-based agency Marks Japan, were arrested on suspicion of violating the country's worker dispatch law, said a spokesman with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

Police suspect the trio forced the woman to go to a pornographic video film location in 2013, the spokesman said without giving further details.

The woman signed a contract as a model with the agency in 2009, Kyodo News Agency reported. She was forced to appear in more than 100 videos, Nippon Television Network said.

The talent agency pressed the victim to perform in adult videos by allegedly warning her that she had to pay penalties for breach of contract if she refused, Kyodo added.

Pornography is widely available in Japan, but the dark side of the industry is seldom discussed openly and the rights of those who work in it even less so.

The country's porn industry is worth up to 500 billion yen ($4.7 billion) annually, victim advocates said earlier this year. The cited abuses including coercive or fraudulent signing of contracts -- sometimes targeting minors.

Human Rights Now, a Tokyo-based campaign group, said the number of cases in which counseling was sought over similar alleged abuse rose to 59 in 2015 from 32 in 2014 -- after just one case each in 2012 and 2013.