|
Post by Admin on Sept 26, 2014 20:33:09 GMT
In recent years members of the U.S. Korean community have erected seven memorials here to the so-called comfort women; two each in New York and New Jersey, and one in California, Virginia and Texas. Korean victim Kim Hak Soon, then 67, was the first former comfort woman to speak out in 1991. Because of her courage and the seven memorials, those in the United States who do know about the young girls and women forced into sexual slavery in brothels by the Japanese military during World War II generally know only about the abuse of Korean girls and women. A common thread among victims of military sex crimes is an unwarranted sense of shame that surviving victims feel, accompanied by a reluctance to speak out or share their experiences with their families. This is something we know from studying the sex crimes perpetrated by the Nazis in World War II. Like their counterparts in the Japanese military in East Asia during World War II, the Nazis and their collaborators also brutally used female sex slaves. Women were forced to serve in brothels in Nazi concentration camps or to provide sex for some Nazi officers. So-called medical experiments left some women sterile and forced nudity, which is now considered a crime against humanity, was customary. Rapes were randomly committed, often resulting in the subsequent murder of the victim. The Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation seems to have found ways to alleviate some of the lifelong suffering for some of these victims of the Japanese military. "Song of the Reed," a 73-minute film produced by the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation in 2013 and shown at the conference with English subtitles, highlights the stories of five Taiwanese survivors of sexual slavery. Their caseworkers lovingly provide them with ways to overcome their post-traumatic stress syndrome and to survive with human dignity. In one of the most touching parts of the film, the elderly women were granted their wishes to be whatever they wanted for one day. Survivors who had spent so much of their lives suffering during and after World War II had their dreams come true, under the supervision of the young caseworkers from the Taipei foundation. One woman temporarily became a flight attendant, one a singer and another presented a hand-knitted scarf to the president. A survivor who had died during the filming was memorialized by her friends in the foundation's program. Shu-Hua Kang, executive director of the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation, came to the United States especially for the conference, accompanied by Ching-chin Cheng, who works with her at the foundation. To her knowledge, there are now fewer than 75 comfort women still alive, some 50 of them in Korea, Kang said in an interview. She estimates that 300,000 women had been sexually violated by the Japanese military. Her foundation works with victims of current domestic violence and human trafficking, as well as caring for and memorializing the comfort women. It has also created the Women's Rights Museum in Taipei, to honor the memories of so many of the victims of sexual slavery during World War II who have died. Estimates of the numbers of comfort women vary. Pyong Gap Min, a sociology professor at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center, presented the conference with a lower estimate of between 80,000 and 200,000, mostly Korean women. The subject of comfort women doesn't come up often in Japan. The government prefers to deny it and most young people there don't know this history. Nevertheless, two Japanese women who traveled to the conference are dedicated to telling the story. Yoko Shiba works through the Support Group for Taiwanese Survivors of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery, and Kimoko Kawami works through The Association for Uncovering the Facts of Sexual Violence Committed by the Japanese Military in Shanxi Province and Working Together with Survivors. They would like to see a museum about comfort women built in Tokyo.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 2, 2014 20:58:50 GMT
In his U.N. General Assembly address last week Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to make Japan a society where women shine. He also said Japan would help lead the international community in eliminating sexual violence during armed conflict. His Sept. 25 remarks were just the latest in a number of high-profile "pro-women" moves by Abe. Earlier in September he was praised by UN Women's Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka for taking such steps such as increasing the number of female cabinet ministers to five from two (out of 19). However, just weeks before Abe's pledge, Abe's chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, claimed in a Sept. 5 press conference that none of the tens of thousands of women taken into the Japanese military's wartime brothels--the so-called comfort women--was forcibly recruited by the Japanese military or police. Japan's ability to fill the fulfill the role in reducing violence against in in armed conflict as it denies its past prompted questions from journalists at the conference where Suga spoke. Journalists at the conference raised the question of Dutch women (including wartime internees) who were made to serve as "comfort women." One reporter referred to the careful study of this issue commissioned by the Dutch parliament and completed in 1994, which found that about 65 women had "most certainly" been forcibly recruited by the Japanese military or police for prostitution. Suga appeared at first to avoid answering this question, but was then handed a piece of paper from which he read the following statement: "The government's position is that in the government's examination [of the issue], it was not possible to find descriptions showing so-called forcible recruitment in which the military and related bodies were involved." Later in the same conference Suga reiterated: "It is the view of the government that the projects in Indonesia have already been settled and that materials showing forcible recruitment could not be found." Abe and his political allies have long sought to minimize responsibility for this history by trying to make a distinction between women seized directly in their homes, neighborhoods or workplaces by the military, and those who were first tricked by brokers and then handed over to the military. The latter, they have always said, were not "forcibly recruited." Now they are denying all reports of forced recruitment everywhere. This can only mean that they now also reject the findings of the 1994 Dutch report, as well as many testimonies of forced recruitment of women in other places throughout Japan's wartime empire. This denial comes as Japanese journalists, historians, publishers and others who have tried to tell the story of the "comfort women" find themselves under fierce attack from right wing groups. The liberal Asahi newspaper, which has attempted to provide relatively balanced coverage of the topic, has been bitterly criticized by its rivals and by leading politicians. The main trigger for this attack was a recent acknowledgment by the Asahi's editor that his paper had made an error some 25 years ago, when it published a statement by a former Japanese wartime labor recruiter who claimed personally to have led Japanese soldiers in raids to round up Korean women for forced prostitution. A few years later, this man publicly retracted his claim. Other newspapers also published stories on this testimony at the time. Now, even though the testimony has had no influence on serious debate about the "comfort women" issue for years, the Asahi is being publicly pilloried, and there have been threats to call its chief editor before parliament for questioning. Both Abe and Suga have recently condemned the Asahi for "bringing shame on Japan." In an extraordinary campaign of coordinated public hostility, Japanese universities employing former Asahi journalists who have written on the "comfort women" issue now find themselves bombarded by emails and phone calls demanding that they sack the academics concerned. This has led in at least one case to the sudden "early retirement" of the academic under attack. Other academics have been attacked in the mass media for including material referring in their classes to the forced recruitment of comfort women. Concerned public commentators on this and related issues also have become the target of vitriolic attacks by weekly magazines. Now, only one or two small and brave journals still dare to look critically at the government's denials or to publish the stories of former "comfort women" who speak of being forcibly recruited.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 6, 2014 22:26:47 GMT
Asahi Shimbun President Tadakazu Kimura announced Thursday that the national daily would ask a third-party panel to thoroughly examine its reports on the issue of so-called comfort women. The Asahi admitted last month that witness accounts by the late Seiji Yoshida were false and retracted some of its articles based on his remarks. Yoshida claimed to have been involved in forcibly taking away Korean women to serve as comfort women for the Japanese military during wartime. On Aug. 5 and 6, the Asahi published special articles that verified how and why it carried articles containing Yoshida’s false statements. In only about a month since then, the newspaper has been driven into a situation in which it had no option but to reexamine its coverage of the comfort women issue, which raises questions regarding its attitude as a news organization. At a press conference Thursday, Kimura for the first time apologized for publishing stories regarding the comfort women issue based on Yoshida’s statements. “I apologize to our readers for publishing erroneous articles related to Seiji Yoshida as well as for the failure to issue the correction earlier,” Kimura said. The third-party panel will comprise experts from outside the Asahi, including lawyers, historians and journalists, he said. Kimura said the Asahi would ask the panel to conduct a thorough examination into “the effects that the Asahi’s reporting on comfort women had on the international community, including Japan-South Korea relations.” In last month’s special review of its coverage of the comfort women issue, the Asahi did not refer to its responsibility for the repercussions of its coverage in the international community. Yoshida’s accounts were incorporated in a report submitted by Radhika Coomaraswamy to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in 1996. This report was a major factor in Japan’s being criticized in the international community as a “sexual slavery state.” There have been no confirmed official documents to prove the forcible recruitment of comfort women, according to the Japanese government. Regarding the Asahi’s coverage of the comfort women issue, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said last week, “There’s no doubt the Coomaraswamy report was affected by the content of the coverage.” However, at the press conference, Kimura said, “We verified our reports in the special review printed on Aug. 5 and 6 and are confident in the content [of the verification],” stressing that he had no intention at the moment of reexamining the special review. In the review, the Asahi argued that although those who served as comfort women were not “forcibly taken away,” they were “deprived of freedom in a coercive nature,” maintaining their stance that this was an important point.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 10, 2014 21:09:00 GMT
Even as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on October 1 before the Lower House of the Diet, reaffirmed that there would not be any challenge or replacement of the Kono Statement, trouble appears to continue to simmer over the issue. The Kono Statement was issued in 1993 by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, in which Japan made a formal apology for the systematic use of “comfort women” during the Second World War. Despite Abe’s reassurances, there are other statements swirling about (some from Abe himself) that cloud the intention and sincerity of his comments. A large part of the recent confusion stems from articles written on the subject by the Asahi Shimbun in the 1980s and 90s. In those articles, a former soldier in the Japanese Imperial Army named Seiji Yoshida described forcing women on the Korean island of Jeju to work in military brothels. The articles were retracted because scholars later cast doubt on the soldier’s story that the Asahi could not rectify. After the newspaper made public its mistakes in early August and retracted the articles, several government officials used the incident as grounds to claim that Japan’s wartime history has been unfairly portrayed by the media. Indeed, Abe has been among officials who have said there is no proof that the Imperial government directly ordered the kidnapping and forced prostitution of the women within its conquered territory. On October 3, shortly after he said there would be no replacement of the Kono Statement, Abe again addressed the House of Representatives and said the Asahi stories had slandered Japan, and that the issue from now on should be based on fact. In the 1980s, the Asahi Shimbun reported, without thorough investigation, that Seiji Yoshida forcibly took approximately 200 local women from South Korea’s Jeju Island to serve as comfort women, or as the UN refers to them as enforced sex slaves. “We have judged that Mr. Yoshida’s statement, in which he said that he took comfort women by force from Jeju Island, was fake, and we retract the article. At the time we could not figure out that the statement was fake,” wrote the Asahi Shimbun recently. To provide slightly more context, four American experts that helped to draft a 2007 U.S. congressional resolution saying that Japan “should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery,” have weighed in after the Asahi retraction. Their response in The Nelson Report said that the Yoshida testimony did not influence the issue from the U.S. perspective, saying the facts “will refute the view of the Japanese history revisionists and the Abe Administration that the Yoshida memoir, as reported by the Asahi Shimbun, colored all understanding of the comfort women tragedy,” adding “we are further troubled that the Abe Administration appears to adhere to this view.” Even as Abe has publically said that the Kono Statement will not be retracted, a close personal aide has made statements to the press that indicate a new statement by the prime minister might supersede it. On October 6, MP Koichi Hagiuda, who is a special advisor to Abe within the ruling LDP, said “We do not intend to review the Kono Statement as it has already finished its role.” However, he followed by saying “Next year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. By issuing a new statement, we would let [the Kono Statement] be emasculated.” Abe plans to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War next year with this official statement. Statements from those close to Abe that the Kono Statement has “finished its role” and will be “emasculated” do not inspire confidence that Japan will continue to accept responsibility for its past wartime crimes. Even as Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga suggested that Hagiuda’s comments were simply the personal opinion of a lawmaker, the space for ambiguity created by the Japanese leadership will do little to increase trust in Japan’s regional partners, as it seeks to improve damaged ties that are partly attributable to this very issue. www.asiapundits.com/podcast-comfort-women/
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 12, 2014 21:25:28 GMT
The Asahi Shimbun’s erroneous articles on the issue of so-called comfort women made the late Seiji Yoshida famous and fueled his activities in South Korea, which were in turn reported by the daily to help spread the image of Japan as a sexual slavery state both domestically and internationally. The Asahi on Friday disclosed 12 of the 16 articles it has retracted because they were based on false statements by Yoshida, who has said he forcibly rounded up and took away local women on Jeju island, in current day South Korea, during World War II to make them comfort women for Japanese soldiers. The 12 articles included a story with the headline “I forcibly took away Korean women,” printed by the Asahi’s Osaka headquarters in the morning edition on Sept. 2, 1982. It was the first story that described details of the statement made by Yoshida, who claimed to have “hunted up 200 young Korean women.” The Asahi articles apparently fueled Yoshida’s activities on the comfort women issue. In July 1983, Yoshida published a book titled “My war crimes: Forced transportation of Koreans.” In December of the same year, Yoshida also built a comfort women memorial in Cheonan, South Korea, to apologize for forcibly taking them away. The Asahi carried articles regarding Yoshida at least three times through that year, including one on the unveiling ceremony of the memorial in the morning edition on Dec. 24. When then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa visited South Korea and issued a formal apology to the comfort women in January 1992, the Asahi column made reference to Yoshida’s statement. When Yoshida apologized to former comfort woman Kim Hak Sun in Seoul on Aug. 12, 1992, the Asahi carried an article with the headline “Yoshida apologizes to former comfort women in Seoul” in its Aug. 13 issue. Asahi’s reporting made Yoshida famous and then in turn, as recognition of his name increased, the daily reported his activities further. Dong-a Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, reported in its June 23, 1983, issue that Yoshida asked for the cooperation of a Korean women’s association in Tokyo to build the comfort women memorial. The Hankyoreh, a leading South Korean paper, also reported in its Sept. 4, 1991, edition details of Yoshida’s statement. When Miyazawa issued an official apology in 1992, Yoshida was featured in the news in South Korea. The Hankyoreh reported Yoshida’s visit to Seoul in a huge article on Aug. 13, 1992, and, in its edition of the same day, the Dong-a Ilbo also covered the news with a large photo of Yoshida bowing to Kim in apology. Even now, students in South Korea learn about Yoshida’s statements. A 2013 middle school textbook titled “History for Middle School No. 2” devotes one page to a feature titled “Comfort women for the Imperial Japanese Army who were forced to become sex slaves.” The feature reprinted falsified statements by Yoshida that claimed: “We have forcibly taken away about 6,000 women. As soon as we arrived at a village, we dragged all the women out to the lane. When any of them tried to run away, we would hit them with a wooden sword. We selected young and healthy women and shoved them into a truck.” The statements were introduced as “the truth about comfort women for the Imperial Japanese Army.” On April. 19, 1996, the so-called Coomaraswamy report that recommended the Japanese government pay compensation to former comfort women was accepted by the then U.N. Human Rights Commission, with the expression “takes note.” The report cited Yoshida’s statements as one item of evidence and also defined the comfort women as “sexual slaves.” On July 30, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution demanding the Japanese government issue a formal apology over the comfort women issue. Movements to establish statues and other memorials dedicated to these women continue still. Yomiuri coverage On the national news page of its evening edition on Aug. 15, 1992, The Yomiuri Shimbun carried an article with the headline, “Meeting over comfort women issue held to reflect on ‘war victims.’” The article reported on statements Yoshida made at the meeting that he was involved in forcibly taking away Korean women. Since then, however, the Yomiuri has not carried Yoshida’s remarks in relation to the comfort women issue, nor has it run articles based on Yoshida’s statements that could be construed as suggesting Korean women were forcibly taken away. Moreover, the Yomiuri has repeatedly reported the existence of suspicions Yoshida’s statements were false. In an editorial carried on Aug. 11, 1998, the Yomiuri, without identifying Yoshida by name, cited a report submitted to the United Nations as “one that contained several direct quotations from a Japanese author whose work has sometimes been criticized for containing falsifications.”
|
|