A court in Japan has ruled in favor of a woman who accused one of the country's highest-profile journalists of rape, but could get no redress from police or prosecutors.

Shiori Ito emerged from the courtroom with a sign declaring victory, a tradition with lawsuits in Japan.  said she had dinner with Noriyuki Yamaguchi in 2015 to discuss a job opportunity at Tokyo Broadcasting (TBS), where he was the chief of the Washington, DC bureau.  But she accused him of possibly slipping her a date rape drug, dragging her to a hotel room, and raping her.  

"When I regained consciousness, in intense pain, I was in a hotel room and he was on top of me," she said in a recent interview.  "I knew what had happened but I couldn’t process it."

Ms. Ito went public with her story two years later, but police refused to arrest him and prosecutors would not press charges.  Worse yet, investigators had her re-enact the rape with a life sized doll while male officers watched.  Yamaguchi, reportedly a friend of conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, wrote that year that he had never heard of date rape drugs.

Justices didn't believe him, and ordered him to pay Ms. Ito more than AU$43,000 in damages.  They also dismissed his countersuit against her.  The ruling stated Ito was "forced to have sex without contraception, while in a state of unconsciousness and severe inebriation".  It continued, "We acknowledge that the plaintiff continues to suffer from flashbacks and panic attacks until now."

Ito said the #MeToo movement in The West gave her the confidence to fight back in a country where only four percent of female rape victims come forward.  Now the #MeToo movement is slowly growing in Japan.

"I thought 'It wasn’t only me!' and I believe there were others who thought so, too," she said.  "I saw women in Europe or the United States actively discussing it and standing up together but I didn’t think that happened in Japan at the same time."