Shoko Tendo was drawn into a life of violence, drugs and sex as she endeavoured to pay off her family's debts.

Body tattoos are one of the hallmarks of the 'yakuza' - Japan's organised crime gangs - and mean that gang members are easily identifiable.

Listen to Shoko Tendo on Outlook

Shoko Tendo told Outlook presenter Fred Dove that, when she went to junior high school, she was herself lured into a life of violence as she was confronted by members of other gangs.

"I became violent," she told Outlook presenter Fred Dove, "Sometimes even if you don't want to do that, you have to do it.

"I knew that I had to fight with the girls. I didn't want to injure girls but sometimes I was forced to fight.

"I was always surrounded by girls in gangs.... Really this fighting was my daily life."

Shoko spoke with fondness about her father who never spoke about his yakuza business while at home and brought her up to have impeccable manners.

When she was young, the family were very rich with a whole garage-full of cars which were her father's passion.

	Shoku has had reconstructive surgery on her face because of the beatings that she suffered.

At primary school Shoko enjoyed painting and drawing and the gangster's world seemed far away.

But then the family fell on bad times and these bad times had the effect of plunging the teenage Shoko deep into trouble.

She was approached by a family friend who said offered to help pay off the family debts in return for sex.

"He was a very heavy drug user," she said, "So from then on we took a lot of drugs. Drugs and sex. Days just passed doing drugs and sex.

"Then sometimes he hit me."

This was just one relationship among many and the beatings were also common - in fact she ended up having reconstructive surgery on her face to hide the effects of one particularly bad incident.

Shoko decided to leave the yakuza gang at the age of 19 when her family's property was seized by the government - but, as she still has a tattooed body, she is frequently mistaken for a yakuza.

"I knew that having tattoos all over my body would limit my (progress) in society in Japan," she said, "And job and marriage and everything - but I don't regret it at all."

Shoko has written her account of her life. It's called Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter and has been a best seller in Japan.

"I wrote my story quite honestly," she said, "I needed a lot of courage to do that.

"For example no woman has written in Japan about what it's like having sex when on drugs...it was quite new. I was very much ashamed to write about my own sex...

"It was very tough in terms of loss of pride when my father had to quit yakuza. That was quite a hard time that I wrote about honestly.

"These points people had sympathy about my book."

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