Most say that there should be separate commuter trains for women.

Efforts by police and the courts appear to have had little effect on the activities of Japan’s increasingly devious sukebe, or perverts.

A survey conducted by the Tokyo metropolitan government and JR East, the country’s largest railway operator, indicated that 64 per cent of women in their twenties and thirties had been molested on public transport. Most respondents said that they had been groped several times within the past 12 months.

For decades the crime has been the persistent scourge of Japan’s notoriously crowded commuter trains. At stations across the country, rush hour produces a twice-daily crush that makes it nearly impossible for victims to identify their molester.

The problem is far worse in the evenings, when alcohol turns many salarymen into amateur sukebe for the duration of their journey home. Blameless male passengers make a practice of holding books and magazines with both hands to show their innocence in case anything happens near them.

According to the survey, the most common response by the victims was either to slap their molester, scold him or run away. Many, though, endured the ordeal because they were on trains too overcrowded for them to move.

Two years ago, when the bottom-pinching menace became too common to ignore, railway operators began to include women-only carriages on commuter trains. The new survey showed, however, that the great majority of women favour dividing entire trains according to gender.

The penalties for groping have been raised to a maximum of seven years’ imprisonment. However, many women are too ashamed to report the crime in the first place and, traditionally, the courts have generally been lenient to offenders and imposed only suspended sentences.

However, a landmark decision by the Tokyo District Court last year prompted a national drive to get tough on gropers. The courts have taken an increasingly hard line on sukebe who are part of gangs that form over the internet with the aim of molesting women on public transport. Gang members use their weight of numbers to conceal their crimes from other passengers.

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