Japanese woman aims to eradicate groping 10 years after developing badges

For Takako Tonooka, not her real name, the journey of "not creating any more perpetrators and victims" started in April 2014, when she first encountered a molester on a train while on her way to high school.

"I was so terrified that I couldn't say or do anything," she recalled.

Although she tried out different things to avoid being molested, such as riding different trains and train cars, and going to school with male friends, she still fell victim to groping.

In April 2015, she caught a molester herself for the first time.

When she took the offender to the police, she realized that catching the culprit was not her ultimate goal and that she just did not want to fall victim to molestation.

Together with her mother, she created a card reading, "Molestation is a crime. I won't give in."

After she started to commute with the card attached to her school bag in a prominent place, she was no longer groped.

Posting about her homemade molestation deterrence card on social media, Tonooka was then contacted by her mother's childhood friend, who was also a victim of molestation.

Tonooka and Yayoi Matsunaga, 60, who now heads Chikan Yokushi Katsudo Center, an organization in the city of Osaka, western Japan, that works to combat molestation, talked and decided to create through a crowdfunding project tin badges firmly saying no to molestation.

The organization was set up in January 2016 to help spread the badge initiative.

So far, the organization has handed out about 30,000 tin badges.

The badges were initially distributed for a fee, but became free in 2022 thanks to widespread support for the project.

People will be able to receive the badges after they register for membership on the organization's website.

Students at an all-girls school who received the badges have said that they are no longer victims of molestation, and that they can now ride trains without worries.

Badge designs are decided through a competition held every year covering students.

Design applications in this year's contest will be accepted until September 10.

Among past applicants, a male contestant said that he wanted to do something after someone dear to him was molested.

Tonooka, who is also a judge of the contest, says the driving force behind her efforts is "a sense of mission to prevent people from becoming victims (to molestation)."

With 10 years having passed since the contest was launched in 2015, the organization now receives hundreds of badge design applications every year.

"If more people come to think that the molestation issue is something that they need to tackle, this would lead to no more perpetrators," Tonooka said.

"I hope the competition will serve as an opportunity (to bring such developments)," she said.