‘A system of slavery’: ex-geisha apprentice on the dark side of the Japanese tradition

When Kiyoha Kiritaka left Kyoto’s geisha district in 2016, she was escaping what she now calls “a system of slavery”, exposing a darker reality behind one of Japan’s most celebrated traditions. Kiritaka entered the geisha world as a teenager, drawn to its traditional arts. She practised Japanese dance, the shamisen (a Japanese stringed instrument) and the tea ceremony, hoping one day to become a fully fledged geisha. But after just over a year as a maiko – an apprentice geisha – she says she...