Japan Press Weekly

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2013 June 19 - 25 TOP3 [HISTORY]

Evidence of ‘comfort women’ coercion exists: Gov’t admits

The Abe Cabinet on June 18 for the first time admitted to the fact that publicly-discovered materials include evidence proving that the Japanese Imperial Army had used coercion to take away women to make them work as “comfort women”.

The recognition came to light in a government written response to an inquiry submitted by Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Akamine Seiken.

The evidence is the Justice Ministry’s document concerning the 1948 extraordinary military tribunal in Batavia in Indonesia.

The document clearly states that Dutch women interned on Indonesia’s Java Island and Magellan were carted off by the Japanese military “to comfort stations, kept there, and forced into prostitution under threat.”

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, since his first cabinet denied any coercion in 2007, has argued that the government found no evidence directly indicating that the Japanese military and authorities had brought women into prostitution under coercion.

Existence of the government-approved evidence overturns the basis for the prime minister’s this argument.

Osaka City Mayor Hashimoto Toru (Japan Restoration Party co-leader) and others denying the Japanese military’s involvement in coercion in forcing foreign women into sex slavery often refer to the 2007 statement on the issue made by the Abe Cabinet.

The present Abe Cabinet should acknowledge its mistake and withdraw the 2007 statement without delay, said Akamine.