What's new

Comfort woman: Past and present

Joined
Jun 22, 2013
Messages
3,180
Reaction score
-45
Country
Singapore
Location
Singapore
I open this thread to discuss about needs of male soldiers, as well as institutional provision. Please refrain from using keyword such sxx, fxxx because PDF algorithm will block you.

220px-Yasuhiro_Nakasone_in_Andrews.jpg

中曾根
Japan PM opened whorre house

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/opinion/comfort-women-and-japans-war-on-truth.html

In 1942, a lieutenant paymaster in Japan’s Imperial Navy named Yasuhiro Nakasone was stationed at Balikpapan on the island of Borneo, assigned to oversee the construction of an airfield. But he found that sxxxxl misconduct, gambling and fighting were so prevalent among his men that the work was stalled.

Lieutenant Nakasone’s solution was to organize a military brothell, or “comfort station.” The young officer’s success in procuring four Indonesian women “mitigated the mood” of his troops so well that he was commended in a naval report.

Lieutenant Nakasone’s decision to provide comfort women to his troops was replicated by thousands of Imperial Japanese Army and Navy officers across the Indo-Pacific both before and during World War II, as a matter of policy. From Nauru to Vietnam, from Burma to Timor, women were treated as the first reward of conquest.

We know of Lieutenant Nakasone’s role in setting up a comfort station thanks to his 1978 memoir, “Commander of 3,000 Men at Age 23.” At that time, such accounts were relatively commonplace and uncontroversial — and no obstacle to a political career. From 1982 to 1987, Mr. Nakasone was the prime minister of Japan.

Today, however, the Japanese military’s involvement in comfort stations is bitterly contested. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is engaged in an all-out effort to portray the historical record as a tissue of lies designed to discredit the nation. Mr. Abe’s administration denies that imperial Japan ran a system of human trafficking and coerced prosttitution, implying that comfort women were simply camp-following prosttittutes.

The latest move came at the end of October when, with no intended irony, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party appointed Mr. Nakasone’s own son, former Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone, to chair a commission established to “consider concrete measures to restore Japan’s honor with regard to the comfort women issue.”

The official narrative in Japan is fast becoming detached from reality, as it seeks to cast the Japanese people — rather than the comfort women of the Asia-Pacific theater — as the victims of this story. The Abe administration sees this historical revision as integral to restoring Japan’s imperial wartime honor and modern-day national pride. But the broader effect of the campaign has been to cause Japan to back away from international efforts against human rights abuses and to weaken its desire to be seen as a responsible partner in prosecuting possible war crimes.

A key objective of Mr. Abe’s government has been to dilute the 1993 Kono Statement, named for Japan’s chief cabinet secretary at the time, Yohei Kono. This was widely understood as the Japanese government’s formal apology for the wartime network of brotthels and front-line encampments that provided sxx for the military and its contractors.

Imperial Japan’s military authorities believed sxx was good for morale, and military administration helped control sxxually transmitted diseases. Both the army and navy trafficked women, provided medical inspections, established fees and built facilities. Nobutaka Shikanai, later chairman of the Fujisankei Communications Group, learned in his Imperial Army accountancy class how to manage comfort stations, including how to determine the actuarial “durability or perishability of the women procured.”

Japan’s current government has made no secret of its distaste for the Kono Statement. During Mr. Abe’s first administration, in 2007, the cabinet undermined the Kono Statement with two declarations: that there was no documentary evidence of coercion in the acquisition of women for the military’s comfort stations, and that the statement was not binding government policy.

Shortly before he became prime minister for the second time, in 2012, Mr. Abe (together with, among others, four future cabinet members) signed an advertisement in a New Jersey newspaper protesting a memorial to the comfort women erected in the town of Palisades Park, N.J., where there is a large Korean population. The ad argued that comfort women were simply part of the licensed prosttitution system of the day.

In June this year, the government published a review of the Kono Statement. This found that Korean diplomats were involved in drafting the statement, that it relied on the unverified testimonies of 16 Korean former comfort women, and that no documents then available showed that abductions had been committed by Japanese officials.

Then, in August, a prominent liberal newspaper, The Asahi Shimbun, admitted that a series of stories it wrote over 20 years ago on comfort women contained errors. Reporters had relied upon testimony by a labor recruiter, Seiji Yoshida, who claimed to have rounded up Korean women on Jeju Island for military brothells overseas.

The scholarly community had long determined that Mr. Yoshida’s claims were fictitious, but Mr. Abe seized on this retraction by The Asahi to denounce the “baseless, slanderous claims” of sxxual slavery, in an attempt to negate the entire voluminous and compelling history of comfort women. In October, Mr. Abe directed his government to “step up a strategic campaign of international opinion so that Japan can receive a fair appraisal based on matters of objective fact.”

Two weeks later, Japan’s ambassador for human rights, Kuni Sato, was sent to New York to ask a former United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, Radhika Coomaraswamy, to reconsider her 1996 report on the comfort women — an authoritative account of how, during World War II, imperial Japan forced women and girls into sxxual slavery. Ms. Coomaraswamy refused, observing that one retraction did not overturn her findings, which were based on ample documents and myriad testimonies of victims throughout Japanese-occupied territories.

There were many ways in which women and girls throughout the Indo-Pacific became entangled in the comfort system, and the victims came from virtually every settlement, plantation and territory occupied by imperial Japan’s military. The accounts of rappe and pillage leading to subjugation are strikingly similar whether they are told by Andaman Islanders or Singaporeans, Filipino peasants or Borneo tribespeople. In some cases, young men, including interned Dutch boys, were also seized to satisfy the proclivities of Japanese soldiers.

Japanese soldiers rapped an American nurse at Bataan General Hospital 2 in the Philippine Islands; other prisoners of war acted to protect her by shaving her head and dressing her as a man. Interned Dutch mothers traded their bodies in a church at a convent on Java to feed their children. British and Australian women who were shipwrecked off Sumatra after the makeshift hospital ship Vyner Brooke was bombed were given the choice between a brothell or starving in a P.O.W. camp. Ms. Coomaraswamy noted in her 1996 report that “the consistency of the accounts of women from quite different parts of Southeast Asia of the manner in which they were recruited and the clear involvement of the military and government at different levels is indisputable.”
 
. . .
CHINA OPENING UP MORE OF UNIT 731 WARFARE LAB

Post date:
9 Jul 2014 - 10:01pm

BEIJING/TAIPEI – China will allow the public to visit previously restricted areas at a World War II-era chemical and biological weapons lab run by the Imperial Japanese Army’s notorious Unit 731 beginning next year, Chinese state media are reporting.

The laboratory forms part of a site in the northeastern city of Harbin used by the Japanese military to test unconventional weapons — including deadly bacteria and toxic gas — on human prisoners. Thousands of people are reported to have died in the experiments.

Other areas of the site are already open to the public as part of the Museum of Evidence of War Crimes by Japanese Army Unit 731, but this will be the first time the lab, as well as a prison used to hold victims, will be made accessible, Xinhua News Agency said.

The facility provides “direct evidence of the army unit’s biological and chemical warfare program,” Xinhua quoted the museum’s director as saying.

The announcement came as part of a propaganda push by the Chinese government to mark the occasion of the 77th anniversary Monday of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident — a clash between Japanese and Chinese troops near Beijing on July 7, 1937, that sparked Japan’s invasion of eastern China.

News reports covering Japan’s role in World War II flooded newspapers and TV throughout Monday, with particular prominence given to a speech by President Xi Jinping warning against attempts to “beautify” wartime history.

Over the last week, Chinese newspapers have also begun publishing a series of “confessions” by Japanese war criminals that detail atrocities committed during the conflict.

China’s national archive is releasing one confession a day for 45 days.

Although Beijing has long played up Japan’s role in the conflict, war-related media reports have increased substantially following the decision by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration last week to relax restrictions on the use of military force put in place following the country’s defeat in World War II.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou has unveiled plans to open museums in 2015 commemorating China’s war of resistance against Japan’s invasion, as well as the victims of its so-called comfort women system of forced sexual servitude.

Speaking at an event Monday to mark the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Ma said 2015 is very important for Taiwan because it is the 70th anniversary of China’s victory over Japan’s aggression.

The president said he has instructed the Defense Ministry to set up the two museums to preserve historical facts about the war and the comfort women.

Ma, who has recently taken a hard-line stance against Japan, added that his government can’t make concessions on its claim to sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

The islands, called Tiaoyutai in Taiwan, were the first part of Taiwan invaded by Japan, he said.

Japan returned mainland Taiwan as well as the Penghu, or the Pescadores Islands, to Taiwan after World War II but did not hand over Tiaoyutai (Note 1), Ma said.

China opening up more of Unit 731 warfare lab | The Real Singapore

Note 1 from Keel: Diaoyu Islands in PRC terms

************************************************************************************************************


2013-07-31-6a0128775d5666970c0192ac4a47d2970d.png


071513comfort2-dngnk.jpg


images


2048x1366


Glendale unveils 'comfort women' statue, honors 'innocent victims'

July 30, 2013|By Brittany Levine and Jason Wells

Glendale city officials on Tuesday were resolute in their decision to install a 1,100-pound metal statue at Central Park memorializing Asian women and girls who were held as sex slaves by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

Before a standing-room-only crowd of about 300 people, officials hailed the monument to so-called comfort women as a lasting testament to the pain and suffering endured by an estimated 200,000 sex slaves from Korea, China, Indonesia and other occupied countries during the war, the Glendale News-Press reported.

“The Glendale City Council took a bold step. It took strong leadership to bring about justice, to bring about awareness of the human rights issue,” said Chang Lee, a city planning commissioner and member of Korea Sister City Assn.

The statue had been strongly opposed by Japanese nationalists who, despite the historical record, insist comfort women were acting on their own accord as prostitutes. A group of opponents, based mostly in Japan, sent thousands of form letter emails protesting the monument, but to no avail.

pixel.gif

“We stand on the side of history. We stand on the side of truth,” Councilwoman Laura Friedman said to the pre-reception crowd in the Central Library, adjacent to the park. “[The monument] stands to honor and recognize the innocent victims of all wars.”

The statue of a woman in Korean dress sitting next to an empty chair was officially unveiled at a larger ceremony in Central Park, where nearly 500 people had gathered to watch.

There to witness the purple drape falling from the statue was Bok Dong Kim, an 88-year-old former comfort woman who travels the world to promote historical recognition of what she and so many like her went through. She has done so in the hopes of exerting political pressure on Japan to more formally recognize what comfort women endured on the front lines of the war.

“I feel like we have come halfway already,” Kim said through a translator. “I feel very, very happy — very satisfied that we are building the peace monument here in the United States.”

Glendale council members received political pressure throughout the ceremony Tuesday, but were resolute in defying sex slave deniers.

“Today, the city of Glendale stands united with its Korean population. It stands united with the truth,” Friedman said.

At Central Park, that resolve will be on display for years to come in the form of a metal statue of a girl sitting alone with a bird perched on her shoulder. Behind her on the ground is a mosaic of an older woman standing up, but crouched over.

After the ceremony, Kim sat next to the girl and held her hand.
 
.
World War II atrocities recalled at new exhibition at National Museum

PUBLISHED ON FEB 14, 2015 4:02 PM
18315401PRINT EMAIL

Case Files From The Singapore War Crimes Tribunal, it will run from Feb 15 to April 5.
BY MELODY ZACCHEUS

They were kicked and slapped around by Japanese soldiers.

At night, the Prisoners-of-War and civilians interned at Singapore’s Outram Gaol, were given nothing more than wooden planks, a wooden block for a pillow, and soiled blankets that were never washed, to sleep with.

They were also deprived of food and often denied the chance to bathe.

The squalid and unhygienic conditions meant that scabies - an itchy skin disorder caused by parasitic scabies mites living under the skin - festered within the facility’s walls.

“They were tortured terribly and many were killed. My brother-in-law, George, an electrician in charge of the Sembawang Naval Base, was one of those who died in jail,” said war survivor Mr Samuel Dhoraisingam, 90, a former secondary school principal.

By the end of the war on Sept 12, 1945, 39 detainees had died.

The conditions within the gaol were so appalling that it led many to nickname it the Belsen of the East - after a notorious, disease-riddled Nazi concentration camp in Northern Germany.

These war-time horrors that played out in the largest prison facility in Singapore, are on display at a new exhibition called Case Files From The Singapore War Crimes Tribunal at the National Museum of Singapore.

They were extracted by National Heritage Board researchers who were given access to copies of records of the War Office at the National Archives of Singapore. These documents included transcripts of court proceedings and interrogation reports.

“We wanted to showcase a lesser-known aspect of Singapore’s war history and highlight the efforts expended to bring war criminals to justice in Singapore,” said the board’s group director of policy, Alvin Tan.

The exhibition is part of the board’s efforts to commemorate the 73rd Anniversary of the Battle for Singapore and the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Singapore. It opens on Sunday, and ends on April 5.

Also on show are records of horrors that took place at Alexandra Hospital, Selarang Baracks, Oxley Rise and during the Sook Ching massacre.

They also detail the physical abuse of Allied soldiers and civilians who helped in raids and operations against Japanese Forces. The abuse ranged from being beaten with iron bars and wet, knotted ropes, to electric shocks.

Several weapons and ammunition including a Japanese machine gun, and POW belongings such as a handmade radio, are also on show at the exhibition.

The tribunal, run by the British, heard a total of 131 cases over two years. The accused included high ranking Japanese officials, rank and file soldiers and members of the Japanese Military Police or kempeitai.

Life sentences were rolled out, and many of them faced the firing squad or death by hanging.

Mr Samuel believes the exhibition will help shed light on a trying time when many were gripped with fear.

He said: “The exhibition shows the brutality of the Japanese troops... It can also inform current generations of the suffering the POWs and civilians went through which aren’t fully detailed in textbooks.”

melodyz@sph.com.sg

- See more at: World War II atrocities recalled at new exhibition at National Museum - Singapore More Singapore Stories News & Top Stories - The Straits Times

**************************************************************************************************************




Japan's Unit 731 core to open to public
bigphoto_tit3_b.gif
bigphoto_tit6_b.gif
English.news.cn | 2014-07-07 15:40:46 | Editor: Yang Yi



Photo taken on July 7, 2014 shows the entrance to the site of the Japanese Unit 731 troop in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. Unit 731 was a biological and chemical warfare troop set up in China by the Japanese invaders during World War II. The Unit 731 site's core area, which consists of a bacteria lab and a prison used to keep people for biological experiments, is going through a clearing process that will be finished by October 2014. The core area will be open to the public around the 70th anniversary of China's victory in World War II and the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggressions in 2015. (Xinhua/Wang Jianwei)


Click here to see more photos >>

HARBIN, July 7 (Xinhua) -- The core area of the site of Japan's notorious Unit 731 in northeast China's Harbin will be opened to the public in 2015, a source with the Museum of Evidence of War Crimes by Japanese Army Unit 731 said on Monday.

The area, which consists of a bacteria lab and a prison used to keep people for biological experiments, is going through a clearing process that will be finished by October, according to Jin Chengmin, the museum's curator.

The lab and the prison are direct evidence of the army unit's biological and chemical warfare, according to Jin.

"We will try to open it to the public around the 70th anniversary of victory in the Anti-Japanese War," he said.

Unit 731 was a top-secret research base established in Harbin in 1935 as the nerve center of Japan's biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during World War II.

More than 10,000 people were killed there. Civilians and prisoners of war from China, the Soviet Union, the Korean Peninsula and Mongolia perished at the hands of Japanese scientists.

The retreating Japanese invaders blew up the base when the Soviet Union army took Harbin in 1945.


**************************************************************************************************************


**************************************************************************************************************

Memorial to WWII Comfort Women dedicated in Fairfax County amid protests

Antonio Olivo May 30, 2014 Follow @aolivo

Anchored by butterfly-shaped benches, the new Comfort Women Memorial Peace Garden in Fairfax County honors women forced into sexual slavery by Japan during World War II — a chapter of the global conflict that has long fueled tensions between South Korea and Japan.

The memorial, which was dedicated Friday evening behind the Fairfax County Government Center, showcases the emerging voice and influence of Korean Americans in Northern Virginia, who want the story told.

But the memorial is sparking protests from the Japanese Embassy and activists in Japan, a reaction reminiscent of the embassy’s response to legislation requiring that the Sea of Japan also be identified as the East Sea in Virginia public school textbooks.

Koreans say the memorial is a reminder of one of the worst cases of human trafficking, a part of history they say is important to remember in a county with more than 42,000 Korean American residents.

“It was a war crime that happened a long time ago that not many people know about, yet it happened, much like the Holocaust happened,” said Herndon Town Council member Grace Han Wolf, who helped organize the privately funded effort to create the memorial.

statements from Japan’s prime minister that question whether the women were coerced into becoming sex slaves.

In the days leading up to Friday’s dedication ceremony, a group based in Japan and some local Japanese residents peppered Fairfax supervisors with e-mails, arguing that many comfort women were willing prostitutes and that memorials honoring them are an insult to Japan.

“We wish you will stop revealing such a stupid memorial on 30 May,” read an e-mail that suggested that Fairfax commemorate the devastation caused by the atomic bombs dropped by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Japanese government does not deny that forced sexual slavery occurred. But it believes that memorials like the one in Fairfax can spark unnecessary friction between Japanese and Korean immigrants in the United States, said Masato Otaka, minister of affairs for the Japanese.

Embassy officials shared their concerns over the memorial with Sharon Bulova, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors — just as they made their opposition well known before Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) signed the bill on Virginia textbooks, legislation that was eagerly sought by Koreans.

“It may be that you hear stories of children being bullied at school because of some campaign like this, children who had nothing to do with this incident,” Otaka said in an interview. He said the embassy would consider a formal declaration of protest if the Fairfax memorial generates enough negative reaction.

“I think we should be more future-oriented,” Otaka said. “I would assume a lot of ethnic Japanese people would feel uncomfortable.”


Bulova said she supports the memorial because of its historical importance and because its stands as a statement against human trafficking underway now in Northern Virginia — a sentiment shared by the memorial’s organizers.

“I thought it would be a very appropriate thing for us to do in Fairfax County,” Bulova (D) said, adding that the county is also sensitive to the Japanese community’s concerns.

The story of the comfort women is a grisly tale of young women in Korea, China, the Philippines and other countries being abducted from their homes and sent to “comfort stations” for Japan’s Imperial Army during the war.

In some cases, girls and women, as young as 14, were lured away from their families with promises of work in factories or restaurants and were then raped dozens of times a day, according to historical reports.

Korea, then a colony of Japan, was a primary source of comfort women, leading to decades of intense resentment that have become a geopolitical concern.

“It doesn’t matter when and where, what countries, certain things should not happen again. Never again,” said William Hong, president of the Korean-American Association of Virginia.

Japan has made various declarations of remorse over the mistreatment of the comfort women. Most recently, in 1993, the country’s chief cabinet secretary, Yohei Kono, expressed “sincere apologies and remorse” on behalf of his government.

The Japanese government has also contributed the equivalent of $47 million to an Asian Women’s Fund created to assist former comfort women, a process that ended in 2007 when the group behind the fund disbanded, according to the Japanese Embassy.

But the government of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in late February said it wants to revisit evidence that prompted the 1993 statement. South Koreans and the U.S. Congress responded by asking Japan to issue a formal apology for the treatment of comfort women, which the Japanese government says isn’t necessary.

The memorial in Fairfax includes some of the language found in a congressional appropriations bill approved this year that calls for an “unequivocal” public apology from Japan. The language was championed by Rep. Michael M. Honda (D-Calif.), who spent part of World War II in an internment camp for Japanese Americans in California.

“For the women still alive, and for the countless who have passed, official recognition and acknowledgment is the only way to bring proper closure to this terrible chapter of World War II history,” Honda said in a statement.

On Friday, one of those women appeared at the memorial behind the Fairfax government center, after flying in from South Korea to attend an unveiling ceremony.

Kang Il Chul, who had been taken from her family at 16, alternately smiled and cried as she watched Korean folk dancers and singers perform in her honor.

Moments before, organizers had released a flight of butterflies, an international symbol for comfort women that signifies hope.

“I’m so grateful and excited to see you all, but somehow feel a little grief,” Kang said, through an interpreter, thanking even the mostly Korean and Japanese TV crews recording the event as some butterflies perched in a nearby tree.


Memorial to WWII Comfort Women dedicated in Fairfax County amid protests - The Washington Post
 
.
'Comfort Women' Memorial Set Up in New York State
2012061800534_0.jpg


The newly erected monument dedicated to the memory of Korean "comfort women" forced into sexual slavery during World War II at the Veterans Memorial at Eisenhower Park in Westbury, New York /Courtesy of the Korean American Public Affairs Committee

A monument dedicated to the memory of Korean "comfort women" forced into sexual slavery during World War II was set up Saturday at the Veterans Memorial at Eisenhower Park in Westbury, New York.

The red granite monument symbolizes the hardship and blood of the comfort women, the Korean American Public Affairs Committee announced. Nassau County, which manages the memorial park, will also be in charge of maintaining the monument.

This is the second memorial of its kind in the U.S. following one in Palisades Park, a borough with a large Korean American population in New Jersey, in October 2010.

Korean-American organizations had talked with Nassau County for two weeks to set up the monument. Construction was carried out in secret for fear of resistance from the Japanese.

The Japanese Consulate-General in New York has called for the removal of the New Jersey monument and Japanese lawmakers have blamed pro-North Korean organizations for setting it up.

Petitions were posted on the White House's "We the People" petition website on May 10, calling for removing the monument and not supporting "any international harassment related to this issue against the people of Japan." A total of 32,075 signatures had been gathered on as of last Saturday. The White House must give an official response to any petition with more than 25,000 signatures.

englishnews@chosun.com / Jun. 18, 2012 12:20 KST
Related Articles
 
.

Comfort Women Memorial Stays in Palisades Park, Despite Objection From Japanese Government


IMG_8479-Crop-Ed.jpg


7-23-12

Next to the memorials for the two World Wars and the Korean War is a memorial for war victims many may know little if anything about. They were called “comfort women” — about 200,000 Korean, Chinese and other Asian women who were lured to Japan during World War II and forced into slavery.

Steve Cavallo is the artist. “The inspiration of the design was reading some of the testimonies of the former comfort women and how they would cower in the corner,” he said. “How they were not just being raped but they were being beaten by the soldiers. They said the officers were far worst than the average soldier.”

The memorial sits on the grounds of the public library in Palisades Park, a borough where Koreans now make up the majority of the population and where Korean-language signs dominate the business district.

The memorial has been met with controversy — with some saying it doesn’t belong on public property because it may offend Japanese residents and others.


But Mayor James Rotundo says it’s serving its purpose well. “This monument was not for the Korean women. We’ve made that clear to them at the beginning,” he said. “This was for the comfort women who had suffering and it was for educational purposes so that the world and people knew that during war travesties that happen should never happen.”

WATCH VIDEO:

Cavallo said because of the nature of the crimes, it’s been swept under the rug, but people want their stories told.

Seat Paik says many young Koreans don’t know the history of comfort women. “My generation, people we don’t know about the comfort women but I think we need that kind of statue.”

The memorial, which has been in Palisades Park for two years, has caused something of a diplomatic issue with members of the Japanese government visiting and asking for its removal.

Mayors of New Jersey boroughs don’t often find themselves in the middle of an international incident, so Rotundo was surprised when the Japanese ambassador paid him a visit. He was told that the Japanese government has officially apologized for its actions and made war reparations and then was asked to take down the memorial, which he refused.

Recently, the Chinese sent warships to disputed islands to protest the Japanese position on comfort women — which escalated last weekend when Japan temporarily recalled its ambassador to China.

Some Japanese living here say this memorial is historically inaccurate because it fails to mention that Japanese women were also victims of the Imperial Army and that many of the comfort women came to Japan voluntarily.

“They need to correct the content because the content is wrong,” said Serina Shibagaki

Palisades Park is a town that is undergoing a huge demographic shift. A few years ago, old-time residents complained about too many Korean-language store signs. So conflict among people with different backgrounds is not new.

No matter which side of the issue you fall on, the memorial seems to have accomplished one goal — people are talking about a war atrocity few learn about.

Andrew Schmertz reports from Palisades Park.

Follow @NJTVonline

Follow @NJTVonline
 
.
In fact, there're not only one imperialism army who need comfort women including USA.
 
. . .
Comfort women cartoon. The Japanese who screw those girls ruin their life forever. Imagine your virgin daughter one day become sxx slave and force to serve hundreds of customers



 
.
W020090813736873234205.jpg

philippines-japan-comfort-women-2010-8-11-2-50-33.jpg


image2607642x.jpg


comfort-women.jpg


toru-hashimoto-comfort-women-3.jpg



Filipino ‘comfort women’ demand justice from Japan

KYODO

Four Filipinos forced into wartime sexual slavery by Imperial Japanese soldiers rallied Thursday in front of the Japanese Embassy in Manila to repeat their demand for justice from the Japanese government as they commemorated International Memorial Day for Comfort Women.

Backed by family members and supporters from a women’s rights group, the four women in their 80s from Lila Pilipina (League for Filipino Grandmothers) insisted that the government own up to the crimes perpetrated by its soldiers, apologize and put them in Japan’s official historical accounts so the next generation will be aware of them and provide just compensation.

“Our problem is not yet over. We need justice,” 84-year-old Estelita Dy, who was physically and sexually abused at the age of 14 in her home province of Negros Occidental in the central Philippines, said at the demonstration.

“After experiencing that life in the garrison and being raped, I swear that until I die, I will fight for justice, not just for me but for all the women who were victims during the war,” Narcisa Claveria, 85, said.

While all four women opted to accept payment from the Asian Women’s Fund, set up with donations in 1995 to atone for the sexual slavery, they said it was not simply compensation they were seeking for their ruined lives.

“They ruined our lives as women. My elder sister, she lost her mind because of the trauma. And I took care of her until she died. If this happened to you in Japan, would you be happy about it?” asked Claveria, who recalled being brought into a Japanese garrison when she was 13 or 14 in her home province Abra north of Manila together with her two sisters and five other women. They were then sexually abused.

They also reiterated that the offer of apologies from various Japanese officials on various occasions has been insufficient because they said it does not reflect that of the government.

The group’s executive director, Richilda Extremadura, said they are studying the possibility of seeking court intervention for the Philippine government to back their demands from the Japanese government, just as the South Korean government has begun to do for the large number of Koreans who were forced into sexual servitude.

Despite a recent decision of the Philippine Supreme Court to reject the same demands from another group of Filipinos, the Malaya Lolas or Free Grandmothers, Extremadura said Lila Pilipina remains hopeful.

“While we are still waging the struggle, we hope. Maybe, we’ll not get what we want in the time of President (Benigno) Aquino or Shinzo Abe’s administration. But we will not stop our struggle because that is the only assurance of hope that justice will be delivered to the ‘lolas’,” she said.

“What I’m only afraid of is, we are running out of time. Seventy-seven of our lola members have already died. There are around 97 left, but most of them are already senile.”

The four women and Extremadura also objected to the Philippines-U.S. Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, as well as the plan to deepen the role played by the Self-Defense Forces, fearing that militarism in the Asia-Pacific region is resurging.

“If they do that, what happened to us will happen also to the next generation. I don’t believe that they want to just engage actively in humanitarian missions. It’s just a trick. They and the American forces really want to be active militarily again. And we oppose that,” Dy said.

The group later went to the U.S. Embassy to press their point.

There were an estimated 1,000 Filipino women sexually abused by Japanese soldiers during the nation’s occupation until the end of World War II.
 
. .
Survivors in Indonesia recall being 'comfort woman'
CCTV.com

08-15-2014 14:47 BJT


Share this: Share on twitter Share on facebook Share on sinaweibo Share on email

Font size:


Some historians estimate that as many as 200,000 women, many from China and South Korea, but also including Indonesia, were forced into sexual slavery in the Imperial Japanese Army’s brothels during World War Two. Over 60 years later, these women who have endured an unimaginable horror are still looking for closure.

It has been 69 years ago, but for Ichi the scars are still fresh.

"I was so scared. I remembered crying every night. I just wanted to die. I felt so helpless," said Ichi, an Ianfu survivor.

Ichi is one of thousands of women in Indonesia that were taken from their homes and were forced into the Japanese Military’s sex slave system during world war 2 or “ianfu” that literally translates into "comfort women".

"I was kept in a small shed in the back with other women, the soldier would come and threw me onto the bed. He stripped me and i would scream. He’d hit me. There was nothing i can do. Everyone else just stood there." Ichi said.

She was 15 at the time. The rape continues until the Japanese finally left Indonesia in 1945. She became barren ever since. Now blind, she lives in this remote village with her adopted daughter.

This was the place where the Japanese soldiers used to keep the ianfus, in this small building here they house around 30 to 40 women from the area like herds. And when the Japanese came by the truckloads, they came in and brutally raped these women.

This is Eka, she is part of a movement that advocates for ianfu survivors. She’s been working with women like Ichi for 15 years, the aim is to help these women to get justice.

"These women suffered an extreme case of human rights violations that has robbed them of normal lives, they’re sexually traumatized and almost all of them can’t go back to school because of the stigma attached to them. So this horrific event has literally destroyed their whole lives," said Eka hindrati, Indonesian Ianfu researcher.

That stigma was also felt in full by Umi Kulsum. When the Japanese military occupied the building. She was 11 and fearless. She was bringing food home when she was taken by 2 soldiers.

"Two guards at the building grabbed me and stripped me. I can’t even scream. I didn’t know what was happening," said Umi Kulsum, an Ianfu survivor.

By chance, she managed to escape. Her two sisters though, were not so lucky, and were took by the Japanese soldiers as Ianfus. Her life has never been the same ever since.

Her whole family was stamped as Japanese whores, with no one wants to get anywhere near her. She was forced to marry her cousin.

While the current Japanese government position has been unclear about the issue with contradicting stances over the years. There are thousands and thousands of eye witness accounts and documents that corroborates these women’s claims.

"It’s our job to push this issue, only International pressure can be a catalyst for Japan as a government to finally openly admit and apologize and starts to rehabilitate these women." Eka said.

And for women like Umi and Ichi who has been a fighter all their lives, the hope is that these grandmothers can finally have some closure.

Watch the video embedded in the link hereunder:
Survivors in Indonesia recall being 'comfort woman' - CCTV News - CCTV.com English
 
.
This is what, the hundredth thread on this issue?

Nihonjin, I think you are intelligent.

Japanese government Abe want to pepper over the responsibility of Comfort Women and it is happening now.

This is an old issue but the initiative of denial of Comfort Women is on going.

On behalf on Japan, I hope some big shot will come out and say Mea Culpa.

Below is 4 weeks ago, the new shit done by Japanese.


History Clean: Japan deletes WWII 'comfort women' chapters from textbooks

he Japanese government appears to have developed an effective method for dealing with the darker chapters of its history. It's simply getting rid of some unpleasant facts from its high school textbooks. The Education Ministry gave the go-ahead to take out passages about the plight of so-called 'comfort women' from China, South Korea and other parts of Asia during World War II.
 
.

Pakistan Affairs Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom