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Post by Admin on Jun 18, 2014 14:43:01 GMT
The South Korean government’s Ministry for Gender Equality estimates that about 500,000 women work in the national sex industry, though, according to the Korean Feminist Association, the actual number may exceed 1 million. If that estimate is closer to the truth, it would mean that 1 out of every 25 women in the country is selling her body for sex -- despite the passage of tough anti-sex-trafficking legislation in recent years. (For women between the ages of 15 and 29, up to one-fifth have worked in the sex industry at one time or another, according to estimates.) Indeed, the sex industry (in the face of laws criminalizing and stigmatizing it) is so open that prostitutes periodically stage public protests to express their anger over anti-prostitution laws. Bizarrely, like Tibetan monks protesting China’s brutal rule of their homeland, some Korean prostitutes even set themselves on fire to promote their cause. Al-Jazeera reported that some 200,000 South Korean youths run away from home annually, with many of them descending into the sex trade, according to a report by Seoul’s municipal government. A separate survey suggested that half of female runaways become prostitutes. All these statistics fly in the face of South Korea’s stellar image as a society that consistently produces brilliant, hard-working, motivated students and technocrats. However, it is precisely that academic pressure (along with other family issues) that drives many of these teens onto the streets. Face-painted South Korean prostitutes wearing traditional dresses wait to participate in a rally against the enacted anti-prostitution law in front of the Chuncheon City Hall in Chuncheon, South Korea, Tuesday, May 31, 2011. Hundreds of prostitutes gathered to denounce the anti-prostitution law that they say threatens their livelihoods. The U.S. State Department, in the 2008 “ Trafficking in Persons Report,” also blamed South Korean tourists for significantly driving the demand for underage sex in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. The document indicated that large numbers of South Korean girls and women have been trafficked to Japan, the U.S. and as far away as Western Europe. On the flip side, many women from poorer Asian countries, particularly the Philippines, flock to South Korea to work as prostitutes and "bar girls" (lured by the promises of legitimate work as waitresses or entertainers). For the record, the U.S. government prohibits American servicemen from patronizing bars and other establishments in South Korea served by prostitutes. As an illustration of how widespread prostitution is in South Korea, consider that in January 2012 police raided a nine-story brothel in the upscale Gangnam neighborhood in Seoul and discovered no less than 100 prostitutes working there, ostensibly as "hostesses," who charged at least $300 for sex. This complex generated more than $200,000 every day, according to local media reports. In late 2006, the South Korean government took an unusual step to stamp out prostitution -- the Ministry for Gender Equality offered a cash incentive to companies whose male employees refrained from buying sex at office parties and business trips, an ingrained part of Korean corporate culture. The prevalence of prostitution in contemporary South Korea provides an ironic counterpoint to the passionate political activism of elderly Korean women who relentlessly criticize Japan for forcing them into servitude as prostitutes and "comfort women" during Tokyo’s brutal occupation of their country. Prostitution has a long history in South Korea, going back to the medieval period, when the “kisaeng,” female entertainers, were officially sanctioned by the ruling elite to perform all kinds of services, including sex. Prostitution as a way of life continued in one form or another over the centuries, including during Japan’s occupation of Korea in the first half of the 20th century. After World War II and the Korean War, the United States changed the face of prostitution.
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Post by Admin on Jun 20, 2014 22:40:49 GMT
Police officers stand guard against possible attacks from protesters in front the Japanese Embassy in South Korea as Japan reviewed it's 1993 apology. South Korea and China slammed the review as an attempt to discredit historical evidence of abuse. A report on the examination of a 1993 statement in which an apology was made over so-called comfort women states that the Japanese and South Korean governments coordinated the wording of the statement. The government reported to the Diet on Friday the findings of the examination conducted by a team set up by the government, which comprises scholars and others. The team has been examining the process of how the 1993 statement issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, known as the Kono statement, was composed. According to the report, one of the main sticking points in the coordination was “the ‘coerciveness’ of the recruitment of the comfort women.” Women who served the Japanese Army as sexual slaves during World War II protest at 2009 rally. Japanese lawmakers have probed a study that was the basis of the nation's 1993 apology over its use of wartime sex slaves. The report said the South Korean side had “limits that it could not go beyond” and that its people would not accept the idea that some women became comfort women voluntarily. In late April 1993, the South Korean side warned measured expressions such as that there was “coerciveness in some cases” would end up causing a furor. Discussion of the word “coerciveness” continued to the very end of the process. The report added that “if seen across the stages of their ‘recruitment, transfer, control, etc.,’ regardless of how they were recruited, the sense that this was conducted as a whole against the will of the individuals was finally coordinated as being expressed [under the Kono statement] as ‘generally against their will, through coaxing, coercion, etc.’” The report said the Japanese side argued that the “forcefully taking away” of women could not be confirmed based on existing studies. However, the Japanese side agreed to the South Korean request that “remorse” be added to the expression of apology.
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Post by Admin on Jun 21, 2014 21:54:32 GMT
The argument of the nationalists is that these women were merely common prostitutes who were assisted in plying their trade by civilian brokers. Under pressure from his conservative supporters, the Abe administration announced in February that it was setting up a team to "re-examine and understand the background" of the Kono statement, including attempting to verify the testimony provided by former comfort women. The outcry, from South Korea and China in particular, was swift and loud. Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs, says the strength of the outrage expressed in Seoul, Beijing and elsewhere surprised Tokyo. And there are suggestions that Washington - Japan's most important ally - may have had a quiet word as well. "They backtracked at a very early point in the process and said they would only be examining the process of the development of the statement," Okumura told DW. "That means they are not now making a direct challenge to the veracity of the testimony of the former comfort women," he said. "What the two sides are now disputing, it seems, is what part the South Korean government played in the wording of the statement." In the review, the Japanese government is expected to say that the two governments negotiated on the exact phrases that were used. "What the Abe administration wants to achieve is that the document was a collaborative effort that was agreed by both sides and that it should be the definitive closure of the issue that allows both sides to move on," Okumura said. South Korea has similarly seen the rise of a right-of-center administration and does not see the dispute in the same way. Unsurprisingly, Seoul now insists that it provided data but had no say in the wording of the final document. In a statement, the Korean Foreign Ministry said that if the Japanese government "announces a result that challenges the Kono Statement on the pretext of an investigation, our government will actively present authoritative claims and records from Korea and abroad." "The Abe administration has attempted to undermine the apology since it came to power in December 2012, and these efforts continue by fair means or foul," the Chosun Ilbo newspaper wrote in an editorial this week. "The Abe administration clearly intends to portray the Kono statement as the result of Korean pressure rather than objective research," it added. "Anyone who wishes to arrive at an accurate understanding of the comfort women controversy needs to be aware of five basic facts," said Hiromichi Moteki, secretary general of the Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact. "I am referring not to opinions or perceptions, but to irrefutable, objective, social facts," he said. Those five tenets of the nationalists' claim are that prostitution was legal in Japan at the time; that foreign comfort women received the same wage as Japanese women; that US documents describe comfort women as prostitutes; that Korean women were treated the same as Japanese comfort women; and that the police and health authorities were only involved "to ensure that prostitutes were not mistreated."
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Post by Admin on Jun 23, 2014 23:14:42 GMT
A government panel in Japan released its official report on the origins of the 1993 “Kono statement,” an apology by then-Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono for the use of coercion in recruiting “comfort women.” The statement offered Japan’s “sincere apologies and remorse” for the “immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds” suffered by the comfort women, many of whom were Korean. The government panel was designed to explore the history behind the Kono statement, including whether Japan and South Korea collaborated on crafting the language. At the heart of the issue is the question of whether the statement was, as Kono claimed, the result of a two-year Japanese government study on the history of the “comfort women” issue, or whether the statement was issued as a result of South Korean political pressure. The former Japanese military brothel near Liji Road in Nanjing The government panel (as had been expected) found that there had been behind-the-scenes political bargaining to determine the language used in the Kono statement. The report implies that the Kono statement was not based solely on historical evidence. Rather, the panel found that the very idea of a public apology originated out of concern that South Korean public sentiment on this issue of comfort women was damaging Japan-South Korea relations. The report found that the original Japanese investigation into the issue was carried out with feedback from South Korea, and that Tokyo considered Seoul’s suggestions at each step of the process. Though Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet had ordered the panel to conduct its investigation, Abe’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga insists that Tokyo will not break with the Kono statement. “There is no change at all in our position to uphold the Kono statement,” Japan Times quoted Suga as saying. The panel investigation was soundly denounced by China and South Korea, as both governments believe that the panel was designed to cast doubts on the sincerity of the Kono statement. In a Foreign Ministry statement, Seoul expressed frustration with the mixed signals from the Abe administration. Since Abe has promised to uphold the Kono statement, the Foreign Ministry said, the panel investigation was “meaningless and unnecessary.” The statement also accused the panel report of containing “misleading content that undermines the credibility of the Kono Statement.” Seoul chastised Abe’s government for seeking to avoid its responsibility for the harm done to “comfort women,” thereby “reopen[ing] the painful wounds of the victims.” Kyodo News noted that South Korea summoned Japan’s Ambassador to issue a formal protest. China backed South Korea in lashing out at the Abe government. The “alleged investigation further exposes [Japan’s] true intentions of refusing to face up to history,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters. Hua called on Japan “to ‘face up to and reflect upon its history of aggression’ and to ‘take a responsible attitude to honor its commitment to the international community such as the Kono Statement.’” China has repeatedly accused Abe’s government of attempting to “whitewash” history. The investigation into the Kono statement was taken as more evidence of this revisionist goal. The panel investigation drives another wedge between U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, as historical issues continue to be a major factor in their relationship. Meanwhile, China and South Korea have once again found common ground in blasting Japan for a lack of historical remorse. Beijing is likely pleased this issue has reemerged just before Xi Jinping’s planned visit to Seoul — Japan’s actions will provide an easy topic for agreement that allows China and South Korea to avoid focusing on more complex factors in the relationship (from the North Korea question to Seoul’s alliance with the U.S.).
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Post by Admin on Jun 25, 2014 23:09:05 GMT
Singapore's prime minister on Tuesday urged Japan and its neighbours to put World War Two behind them, saying that if they kept reopening issues dating back to the conflict it would be a "continuing sore" in their relations. "One of the reasons Japan’s difficulties are not just with China, but with also Korea is because of reopening of issues that go back to the Second World War and before, which have never been properly put to rest the way they were put to rest in Europe after the war," Lee Hsien Loong told a think tank during a visit to Washington. "So it’s really a sovereign choice for the Japanese to make," Lee said, adding that he was sure the United States would be urging Japan to "act cautiously and circumspectly and try to develop its relationship with its near neighbourhood." The legacy of the war was also a matter for Korea and China, Lee said. "They (Japan) can't do it themselves. It takes two hands to clap, so you need the Chinese and Koreans as well," he said. "Unless you can put the Second World War behind you, and not keep on reopening issues of comfort women, of aggression, of whether or not bad things were done during the war, I think this is going to be a continuing sore." "Comfort women" is the euphemism for women forced to serve in military brothels serving Japanese soldiers before and during World War Two. Many came from China and Korea. On Monday, South Korea and China protested against Tokyo's review of a landmark 1993 apology to such women and said Japan should stop trying to whitewash history. Seoul accused Tokyo of trying to undermine its own apology by saying that Japan and South Korea had worked together on the sensitive wording. South Korea says Japan has not sufficiently atoned for the women's suffering and any attempt at questioning the legitimacy of the apology is an indication of its insincerity. This and other legacies of Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula has complicated ties between two strong allies of the United States in the region that are also, along with an increasingly assertive China, involved in diplomatic efforts to end North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. On Monday, China also called on Japan to take steps to handle the problems of its historical legacy. Japan invaded China in 1937 and ruled parts of it with a brutal hand for eight years, leaving a legacy of bitterness that has been inflamed by recent territorial disputes. Singapore also suffered brutal Japanese occupation from 1942-1945.
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