Girls prostitute classmate to pay cellphone bills

The depths that Japanese teenagers are sinking to beggars belief on occasion. The Nikkei reports that in September 2003 a group of five girls aged 14-16 beat up and threatened a 16-year-old high-school girl into going to a hotel with three men (one of them 64 years old!) they had solicited on a dating site and performing "lewd acts". The five extracted a total of Y140,000 from the girl, which they say they needed because they couldn't pay their cellphone bills.

Immediately after the incident the victim attempted suicide by jumping off a building; fortunately she survived, but is expected to need 6 months to recover from her injuries.

[Via the Nikkei Shimbun]