Tokyo seeks to protect its youth

Officials in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, are considering ways to protect the city's youth, amid concerns about the sexual exploitation of the country's minors.

An advisory panel to Tokyo's governor has made a raft of suggestions, including finding ways to prevent the sale of girls' used underwear, and banning children under 18 from karaoke bars and internet cafes in the early hours of the morning.

Other proposals include adapting vending machines that dispense pornography to prevent minors from using them, and asking publishers to shrink-wrap sexually explicit magazines.

Girls can buy a piece of underwear at 100 yen, wear it and immediately sell it for some 5,000 yen Japanese official

"The aim of these proposals is to create a zoning system to keep the world of adults separate from that of children," said Tatsuo Mizuno, a Tokyo government official.

"It is the responsibility of adults to do this," he said.

Selling used underwear is a lucrative way of earning extra pocket money for Japanese schoolgirls.

"Girls can buy a piece of underwear at 100 yen (less than a dollar), wear it and immediately sell it for some 5,000 yen ($47)... they will not become respectable adults once they have tasted easy money-making," an official told the French news agency AFP.

Japanese media said used underwear can command up to 10,000 yen ($94) a pair in sex shops.

Conventional entertainment establishments such as cinemas and bowling halls already ban under-18s from their premises late at night, but the law that governs them was drawn up before karaoke bars and internet cafes appeared.