With You Osaka — From an NPO Pilot to Japan's Institutionalised 24-Hour One-Stop Centre for Sexual Assault Survivors

Context — SACHICO was founded in 2010 as Japan's first rape crisis center, established by a non-governmental organisation inside a private hospital in Osaka, offering integrated medical, police and legal support in one location. The national Cabinet Office policy of 2011 called for at least one one-stop support centre in each of Japan's 47 prefectures; that goal is now met nationwide.
Evidence — A peer-reviewed 12-year fact-finding study (Kusumoto et al., International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, 2025) compared SACHICO's 2010–2021 visitor data against National Police Agency statistics: 12,036 total visits, 3,189 first-time consultations, 3,100 initial medical examinations conducted (only 2.7% skipped an exam), and a 3.7-fold increase in initial exams from 2010 to 2021. 60% of examined victims were under 19.
Evolution and caveat — Despite this growth, the original NPO/private-hospital model became unsustainable: SACHICO faced a shortage of on-call obstetrician-gynaecologists and difficulty maintaining round-the-clock hospital cooperation. In response, Osaka Prefecture took over direct operation in October 2025, launching "With You Osaka" in Sumiyoshi Ward as a dedicated, government-commissioned, 24-hour facility with shower and evidence-preservation rooms and a referral network of roughly 40 medical institutions across the prefecture — addressing the earlier model's staffing fragility rather than repeating it.

Read the full analysis: https://newsonjapan.com/article/147313.php