Ex-mayor Hideo Kojima elected as town councilor despite resigning over 99 harassment allegations
A former town mayor in Japan, who resigned from his position last year after an official investigation confirmed 99 instances of sexual harassment against municipal employees, has now been elected as a town councilor.
The news has sparked a wave of shock and anger online.
Hideo Kojima, 75, stepped down as the mayor of the town of Ginan in Gifu Prefecture in March of last year.
His resignation came after an independent committee’s report detailed numerous allegations against him, including touching a colleague’s breasts and buttocks and forcing female employees to touch his hands and legs.
A survey conducted by the committee found that over half of all municipal workers who responded said the mayor had done something to make them feel uncomfortable.
Despite this history, official results released on Monday show that Kojima was successfully elected to the town council, placing second among the ten winning candidates.
In an interview with a local television network following his victory, Kojima was defiant.
“It proves residents trust me,” he stated, before adding a warning: “Don’t ever mention (the sexual harassment claims) again.”
The election result was met with widespread disbelief on social media.
“So voters in the town don’t care about employees who were sexually harassed? Shame on you,” one user wrote on the platform X.
Another commented, “I’m so shocked I’m speechless. I’m sorry for the women employees.”
At a press conference last year, Kojima had denied many of the allegations, claiming that what the report described as hugs were not, and that he had patted women on the head to “express gratitude.”
The incident highlights the slow progress of the #MeToo movement in Japan, a country that ranked 118th out of 148 nations in the World Economic Forum’s 2025 gender gap index.
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