Hello, my partner (male) and I (female) are a young couple from New Zealand coming to the end of our first trip in Japan. Unfortunately, today I was using the public toilet in Harajuku Yoyogi Park and noticed someone holding their phone above the stall pointing it at me, in a panic, I banged the bathroom stall and they ran out. My partner was using the male bathroom and come out shortly after the incident and there were a few people around but we weren’t confident enough with our Japanese/ I was quite uncomfortable staying the the area.
I am looking for advice on if there is any way of reporting this? There were cameras outside the bathroom with signs saying under surveillance (only one exit so most likely the person is on camera). If not, a warning to anyone to be careful and vigilant using outdoor public toilets. In future, my partner and I will not be using outdoor public bathrooms at the same time and will have someone watching outside.
Thank you for any advice 🙂
11 comments
Police and Yoyogi Park Administration Office (or Bureau of Construction of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government which supervises the parks).
Lived this in Canada and police just laugh saying it was “just a stalker”… I had never think it was a thing but I learned it this time 🤷♀️
Now I feel the spots and I don’t go in it.
Did you hear a shutter click sound? If not then the person was using an import phone, or might not have been able to get a picture. All phones in japan make an audible noise when the camera records because of things like this.
It sucks you went through that.
Sorry you experienced that.
I haven’t had to actually file a report before but despite what a lot of people say about Japanese police, I’ve never had any issues going to a koban and asking for help about something, probably at least a handful of times. The police have usually been helpful to me. It’s been a few hours but hopefully you found a koban nearby and were able to report this.
Sorry this happened!
Sorry to hear. Cant offer much advice but people should be careful at photobooths too.
Me and my wife caught someone pretending to tie their shoelace and looking under the booth curtain
We stood and stared at him which he then noticed and left. We didnt think to tell the people in the booth / staff though.. never usually in these situation
The tech savvy voyuers also put fake hooks and whatever implements they can come up with with small cameras in it. So beware.
I wouldn’t waste my time with a report.
That sucks. You should read up on some advice on how to avoid situations involving pervs in Japan. Unfortunately Japanese police don’t really take this stuff seriously especially for foreigners. Keep your partner closer to you. I’m not trying to scare you but it’s unfortunate there’s incidents like these a lot.
Seconding just going to a koban and asking for help. I’m so sorry that happened to you that’s horrible. I hope you can successfully report it.
I am sorry to hear about this, that’s very upsetting.
Unfortunately, our experience with police (and the New Zealand embassy in Japan) has not been super positive. A female family member was the victim of a drugging/theft/assault and the Japanese police’s attitude was dismissive (largely due to her being foreign and female, we think) and the New Zealand embassy was super unhelpful when she was traumatised and alone in Japan. In the end, it was a grass-roots network of friends-of-friends-of-friends that supported her and went with her to translate what was going on etc.
If you feel inclined, I would report this to the authorities in an attempt to get attention on this kind of behaviour in case they’re investigating a series of incidents. However, I would brace for not receiving a lot of support yourself in this process.