TOKYO (TR) – Located in a residential area in Okubo, just minutes from the Kabukicho red-light district in Shinjuku Ward, is Tokyo’s only licensed nursery school offering 24-hour childcare.
The facility has been featured in numerous media outlets as a haven for parents struggling with work and family commitments. However, that it became the focus of unwanted attention after a male worker, 40, was arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing children.
Not only that, reports Shukan Shincho (Feb. 19), management at the facility initially claimed that children lodging complaints against the suspect were not telling the truth.
“I didn’t do it”
According to police, Masaaki Kimura is suspected of touching the lower half of the body of the boy who was participating in a school field trip at a lodging facility in Nagano Prefecture in January 2024.
Upon his arrest on suspicion of non-consensual indecent assault, Kimura, who lives in Shinjuku, denied the charges. “I didn’t do it,” he said.
The situation came to light nine months after the incident.
“Last October, a parent of another boy contacted Tokyo Metropolitan Police to reporting that he had been touched in the genitals by a nursery school teacher,” a reporter on the police beat tells Shincho.
Obscene images
After that, dozens of children came forward with similar claims. During the subsequent investigation, a smartphone seized from Kimura was found to contain approximately 1,200 obscene images, including approximately 360 pieces of child pornography. Additionally, another 850 images were of men and women.
The same reporter says, “The focus of the investigation is to determine his motives for being unable to control his desires.”
A person in the childcare industry who knows Kimura tells Shincho that Kimura originally worked as the vice-director of an unlicensed daycare center in Kabukicho.
“The center was a place where mothers who worked at nighttime restaurants and other establishments could leave their children,” the source says. “He also dealt with mothers who had abandoned their children and didn’t come to pick them up. He had a really hard time.”
“Children are liars”
One afternoon a few days after Kimura’s arrest, a parent, having just dropped off their daughter at the nursery school, expressed mixed feelings.
“My husband and I both work in the restaurant business, so the night-time childcare is a lifesaver, and we’re grateful to the daycare teachers,” the parent says. “But…last October, when the parents of children complained to the daycare center about Kimura’s ‘crimes,’ the center defended Kimura. They even said, ‘The children are liars.’ While we’re angry at the center’s response, we have no choice but to rely on them. That’s the reality.”
The same childcare industry insider adds that the facility was operating almost normally both before and after the incident.
“If a childcare worker were arrested for indecent conduct,” the source says, “they could consider temporarily closing the facility, but that would mean families needing 24-hour childcare would be unable to function. I believe that prioritizing these circumstances led to lax management of the childcare worker’s working hours and, ultimately, to overlooking the child’s despicable behavior.”
