ISTANBUL

US forces and Japanese police held a joint patrol in the southern Okinawa province for the first time since 1974, after sexual assault cases involving US troops came to the fore last year.

The patrols, proposed by the US to prevent sexual harassment cases involving American soldiers, took place in busy areas of the city on Friday, according to the Kyodo news agency.

Okinawa hosts 31 US-exclusive military facilities, accounting for 70.3% of such sites in Japan in terms of land area. The island is home to roughly half of the 50,000 US troops deployed in the country under a security pact.

There have been numerous sexual assault cases involving US servicemembers in Japan, prompting public outrage and renewed calls for stricter oversight.

Hundreds of residents held demonstrations in Okinawa in December to demand an apology from the US military after a servicemember was implicated in a sexual assault case.

There were 118 criminal cases involving US military personnel in Japan in 2023, according to official figures. Seventy-two of those cases, accounting for 61%, reportedly occurred in Okinawa.