Lufthansa fires gay Japanese flight attendant
A Japanese man who worked as a flight attendant for the German airline Lufthansa has been fired after having a high school boy visit him in a hotel:
Shinichi ‘Toshi’ Uto, aged 40 and a Japanese national, has the support of his trade union VERDI in a case of unfair dismissal against the airline to be heard in Frankfurt early next month.
Mr. Uto was arrested by police on September 10 under suspicion of illegal prostitution at the hotel used by Lufthansa cabin crew.
But when it was realised that Mr. Uto’s boy friend was 17, the “charge” became an illegal sexual act.
In Tokyo, the age of consent is 18. But, Mr. Uto told UK Gay News that in his home province in Japan the age of consent was 16, as it is in most of Japan.”
The incident was reported as a crime by the Japanese media, with some headlines prominently announcing the criminal as a Lufthansa employee. The airline says it fired Uto because his action harmed the image of Lufthansa in Japan.
The employee’s association of Lufthansa flight attendants has criticized the airline’s decision to fire Uto (emphasis added):
“It is hard to imagine that the whole story would be considered to be harmful to the public image of Lufthansa in Japan, if the flight attendant had been with a 17-year-old female,” the staff group fumed in its newsletter.
“We wonder, if our German employer will do anything to protect its staff members abroad and will defend the values of the German constitution even in foreign media or will rather support a local attitude of discrimination in order to defend its economic interest.”
“Lufthansa never advised its flight attendants of this exception in Tokyo,” the flight attendant’s staff association’s newsletter says.
[hat tip to reader]
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The headline is misleading, it seems to imply that they fired him because he’s gay which isn’t the case. This might not have been illegal in Germany and it might not have been illegal in the rest of Japan but it clearly was illegal in Tokyo.
This would have caused an enormous outcry in Germany if in fact they fired him because he was gay if you consider that in Germany a lot of political leaders are openly gay, even members of the Christian Conservative Party.
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The headline is not meant to imply anything – it just says who was fired. The article quoted has people claiming his homosexuality had something to do with his firing, so I thought it might be a piece of information useful in describing him in the headline.
A longer headline like “Lufthansa fires gay Japanese flight attendant over relationship with high school boy”, would have been more descriptive, but I try to cut down on headline length so it wouldn’t wrap around into 3 or 4 lines.
If the headline is not meant to imply anything about the significance of being gay, perhaps it could have read “Lufthansa fires Japanese flight attendant”. You didn’t consider this possibility?
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I considered it, and I determined it was a significant piece of information. The media organization reporting the story highlights his sexual orientation and the employee association has made his sexual orientation a central point in its complaint about his firing. I leave it up readers to form their own opinions, and I think most are smart enough to read the article before jumping to conclusions.
‘“It is hard to imagine that the whole story would be considered to be harmful to the public image of Lufthansa in Japan, if the flight attendant had been with a 17-year-old female,” the staff group fumed in its newsletter.’
Well then they have weak imaginations. A 40-year-old man getting caught with an underage member of either sex would have been a crime, and damaging to Lufthansa’s image.
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Agree. I don’t know about companies in Japan, but in the west organisations typically fire you for doing something illegal that is in any way publicly visible. If it’s not publicly visible but still affects your perceived integrity you may get the opportunity to resign quickly.
Can you imagine the headline if this “foreign” company *didn’t* fire an employee for violating age-of-consent laws in Tokyo? Trigger another gaijin-demonisation fest, on a corporate scale.
If anything needs to be reviewed here it’s the fact that you can’t legally have sex with someone in Tokyo who you’ve been legally having sex with in another Japanese province. Surely it’s the counter-intuitive and inconsistent Japanese law that is at the root of this whole sorry situation, and has caught out one of their own nationals in his own home country.
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Don’t know what the law is where you are from (UK?), but the same situation exists in the US. States determine age of consent, not the Feds. There is, however, a Federal law that can be used if one takes a minor across state lines to take advantage of a lower age of consent than in their home state.
The lesson here is to know the laws of the location you are in before engaging in sex with someone whose age may be an issue.
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I agree – he was fired because he broke the Tokyo consent law, not because he was gay. If he had been straight, I think Lufthansa would have done the same thing to protect their image.
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40 year old person has sex with 17 year old person. Even if it was legal it’s not right. Gay or not has nothing to do with it.
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“not right” yeah, that what i call argumentation
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40 year old banging a 18 year old is ok, right?
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Huh ? 40 year olds should date other 40 year olds.
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Looks like every comment so far is in agreement, this isn’t an issue of discrimination, its law. It only harms future, legitimate cases this employee group might have in the future to defend this man now.
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Across the world, old guys love to take advantage of the young and naive of either gender
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If it had been a 40 year old man with a 17 year old girl, or a 40 year old woman with a 17 year old boy, it would have been just as illegal and I can hardly imagine Lufthansa just saying, “Party on”.
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