WJHopwood
2014-06-22 00:31:00 UTC
Were the WWII Japanese "comfort women"really forced
to be the sex slaves of the Japanese troops? Or were
they voluntary professional prostitutes? Those seem to
be the principal questions raised by an official Japanese
report released yesterday and described in a New York
Times article titled "Japanese Report Casts Doubt on
Admission of Wartime Sexual Coercion."
The report re-opens the argument in Japan about
whether or not a 1993 Japanese apology to women who
worked in military brothels as sex providers for Japanese
soldiers in WWII was justified. Mostly Koreans, they have
been euphemistically known as "comfort women." Japan's
belated apology to them was named the Kono Statement
after Japan's chief cabinet secretary at the time it was
issued.
The Kono Statement was the first official admission by
Japan that hundreds of women had been forced into
sexual roles by the wartime Japanese army. From the
date of its release the Kono apology has been
controversial. Japanese nationalists have consistently
held that the women were prostitutes, not the innocent
victims they claim to have been, that the Kono Statement
should never been issued and should now be retracted.
It has also been claimed by Japanese who oppose the
apology that only Japan has been criticized for practices
common to all belligerents in time of war. Also that the
Kono Statement was primarily issued as an attempt to
satisfy persistent diplomatic charges by South Korea that
Japan had not displayed enough contrition for its "colonial
and wartime past."
In February this year, the Japanese government appointed
a group of scholars to review the background of the Kono
Statement to determine the circumstances under which it
was initiated. The apparent expectation being that the
review board would find enouh proof that the apology was
appropriate and that the controversy over the role of the
"comfort women" would fade quietly into history.
But that didn't happen. Instead of the issue fading away, the
review board's findings have re-opened old arguments and
raised new doubts about the role actually played by the
" comfort women" and whether the need for an apology had
ever been necessary. The report has also stirred up fresh
resentment in South Korea whose Foreign Minister is quoted
as saying that the review board's findings are "contradictory,
as well as pointless and unnecessary."
Although the current Japanese Prime Minister has pledged
that Japan will stand by its Kono Statement of apology to the
wartime "comfort women," the question remaining is whether
the Japanese government will continue to do so? Stay tuned.
WJH
to be the sex slaves of the Japanese troops? Or were
they voluntary professional prostitutes? Those seem to
be the principal questions raised by an official Japanese
report released yesterday and described in a New York
Times article titled "Japanese Report Casts Doubt on
Admission of Wartime Sexual Coercion."
The report re-opens the argument in Japan about
whether or not a 1993 Japanese apology to women who
worked in military brothels as sex providers for Japanese
soldiers in WWII was justified. Mostly Koreans, they have
been euphemistically known as "comfort women." Japan's
belated apology to them was named the Kono Statement
after Japan's chief cabinet secretary at the time it was
issued.
The Kono Statement was the first official admission by
Japan that hundreds of women had been forced into
sexual roles by the wartime Japanese army. From the
date of its release the Kono apology has been
controversial. Japanese nationalists have consistently
held that the women were prostitutes, not the innocent
victims they claim to have been, that the Kono Statement
should never been issued and should now be retracted.
It has also been claimed by Japanese who oppose the
apology that only Japan has been criticized for practices
common to all belligerents in time of war. Also that the
Kono Statement was primarily issued as an attempt to
satisfy persistent diplomatic charges by South Korea that
Japan had not displayed enough contrition for its "colonial
and wartime past."
In February this year, the Japanese government appointed
a group of scholars to review the background of the Kono
Statement to determine the circumstances under which it
was initiated. The apparent expectation being that the
review board would find enouh proof that the apology was
appropriate and that the controversy over the role of the
"comfort women" would fade quietly into history.
But that didn't happen. Instead of the issue fading away, the
review board's findings have re-opened old arguments and
raised new doubts about the role actually played by the
" comfort women" and whether the need for an apology had
ever been necessary. The report has also stirred up fresh
resentment in South Korea whose Foreign Minister is quoted
as saying that the review board's findings are "contradictory,
as well as pointless and unnecessary."
Although the current Japanese Prime Minister has pledged
that Japan will stand by its Kono Statement of apology to the
wartime "comfort women," the question remaining is whether
the Japanese government will continue to do so? Stay tuned.
WJH