Japan Press Weekly

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2012 August 22 - 28 TOP3 [HISTORY]

Osaka mayor’s abusive remark on ‘comfort women’ denies gov’t statement & UN report

Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru’s abusive remark on wartime sex slavery of the so-called “comfort women” goes against Japan’s official statement and the U.N. report concerning the matter.

Hashimoto told reporters on August 21 that there is no definite evidence to prove that Japan’s military took away those women by force to make them work as “comfort women”.

In 1993, the Japanese government published a statement by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei which clearly admits that the Imperial Japanese military was directly or indirectly involved in the establishment and management of the “comfort stations”, and the transfer of “comfort women”.

The comment also states that those women were generally recruited against their will, and forced to live and work under cruel and inhumane circumstances. There is a large body of evidence to support these claims.

The Osaka mayor also referred to the “comfort women” system as if it was a common practice at that time, saying, “We need to have a straight forward discussion on how the ‘comfort women’ system worked at the time in historical context.”

On the other hand, the U.N. Human Rights Commission adopted a report in 1998 that the “comfort women” system obviously violated then common international law which banned slavery.

Hashimoto and his local political group “Osaka Ishin-no Kai” are aiming to launch into national politics. It is now questioned whether he even has the qualification to talk about national politics.