The editors of Time magazine listed Shiori Ito as one of the 100 most influential people in the world of 2020.
Who is this person?
Shiori Ito was born in 1989. She is a Japanese journalist. In 2015, she contacted the police. She wanted to report that she had been raped.
She mentioned the name of the man who had raped her: Noriyuki Yamaguchi (born 1966), who is a well-known and senior journalist.
The police were not very eager to accept her report. They did not arrest the man she accused of a crime. Perhaps because Yamaguchi was a personal friend of Shinzo Abe who was the Japanese prime minister at the time.
In 2017, she decided to go public with her case. She held a press conference during which she used her own name. This moment can be described as the start of the MeToo movement in Japan.
In 2017, she published a book about her case. The title of her book is Black Box.
In 2017, she filed a civil suit against Yamaguchi. The case ended in 2019 when the court issued a verdict. The court accepted her claim. The court ordered Yamaguchi to pay 3.3 million yen in damages to Shiori.
But Yamaguchi refused to accept the verdict. He appealed to a higher court. In 2022, the Supreme Court confirmed the verdict of the lower court. Yamaguchi was ordered to pay 3.3 million yen in damages to Shiori.
** She told her story at a press conference which was held in 2017
** She told her story in the book Black Box which was published in 2017
** She told her story in the documentary film Black Box Diaries which premiered in 2024
Is it fair to describe her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world of 2020?
Do the editors of Time magazine have a good reason to include her name on this list?
Is she really influential?
Has she influenced any events in Japan in any way?
The answer to these questions is yes.
She has been described as the woman who started the MeToo movement in Japan
During her press conference and in her book, she pointed out that Japanese laws regarding rape are about one hundred years old.
She said the Japanese laws regarding rape should be updated in order to reflect modern ideas and opinions about what is right and wrong.
With her press conference and with her book she started a popular movement which could not be ignored.
The Japanese government and the members of the Japanese parliament had to admit that certain laws were obsolete.
The Japanese laws regarding rape were revised and updated in 2017 and in 2023. The popular movement for change was so strong that the government and the members of parliament had to act.
How and why did this movement start? It can be traced back to the press conference which was held in 2017 and the book which was published in 2017.
The editors of Time magazine had a good reason when they decided to list Shiori Ito as one of the 100 most influential people in the world of 2020.
REFERENCES
Shiori Ito, symbol of Japan's MeToo movement, wins rape lawsuit damages
By Justin McCurry
The Guardian
19 December 2019
Shiori Ito: The 100 Most Influential People of 2020
By Chizuko Ueno
Time Magazine
22 September 2020
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Black Box
By Shiori Ito
(2021)
This is the English version of the book
The Japanese original was published in 2017
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Black Box Diaries
This documentary film premiered in
2024
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