TOKYO, April 28 — A Japanese prosecutor who publicly accused her boss of rape said on Tuesday she will resign after her office rejected a request for an independent probe into harassment within the organisation.

Very few women in Japan speak out about sexual assault but the prosecutor, who uses the pseudonym Hikari, came forward in 2024 to accuse Osaka’s then top prosecutor of raping her six years earlier.

Kentaro Kitagawa, who retired after serving as head of the Osaka District Public Prosecutor’s Office, was arrested and admitted the assault but later withdrew his statement, saying the sex was consensual.

“I feel it’s hopeless to return to work,” Hikari, who has been on leave since before coming forward, told AFP.

“So this is a painful decision I have to make to protect my life,” she said, adding that she will submit a resignation letter on April 30.

Hikari has made a request to the justice ministry and the prosecutors’ office that a third-party panel be set up to investigate cases involving others in the legal profession, and to implement measures to prevent harassment.

She has previously said she was “certain that there are other instances of harassment and additional offences” besides those involving her.

But the prosecutors’ office said authorities would “refrain from responding” as Hikari also filed a suit against the state last month, seeking compensation.

Public records show that 21 people at prosecutors’ offices have been disciplined for sexual violence in the past 16 years, according to Hikari.

She said people close to Kitagawa, especially an assistant prosecutor – whom Hikari says is his lover – have spread malicious rumours.

These included identifying the victim, whose name had not been made public, and claiming she had been attracted to Kitagawa, consented to sex and was sober.

Hikari was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and has been seeing a psychiatrist.

She filed a criminal complaint against the assistant prosecutor in 2025, but the Osaka prosecutor’s office dismissed it, only imposing a reprimand.

Hikari said she planned to file a petition with the prosecutorial review commission on Thursday.

Hikari has said she was not used to drinking strong alcohol and lost her memory halfway through an office gathering in 2018.

The next thing she knew, she said, she was in Kitagawa’s home and was being raped.

Hikari kept quiet after it happened, as Kitagawa had pleaded with her not to go public, saying it would be a damaging scandal for the organisation and threatening to harm himself, she said.

“It fills me with such bitterness that I, the victim, am forced to resign, while people who commit harassment continue working as if nothing had happened,” she said.

“I will keep on pushing for change at the prosecutor’s office so that it will truly serve the public.” — AFP