Japan Press Weekly

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2012 November 14 - 20 [HISTORY]

Historian criticizes Osaka mayor’s abusive remarks on ‘comfort women’

In an Akahata interview, a historian protested against Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru saying that there is no evidence to prove coercion of the Japanese Imperial Army to take away women to make them work as “comfort women.”

Chuo University professor Yoshimi Yoshiaki gave some examples that the Japanese military not only in China but also in many Southeast Asian nations captured women using violence and threats in order to use them as sex slaves.

In Indonesia, the Japanese army hauled Dutch women from a detention camp near the Semarang district to force them to have sex with soldiers. The Dutch government in 1994 released a report on this chapter of history.

In lawsuits filed by Chinese victims of Japanese military sex slavery demanding compensation from the Japanese government, courts acknowledged that the victims were violently taken away to work as sex slaves but rejected their demands.

During Japan’s colonization of Korea and Taiwan, women in these nations were abducted and trafficked by traders who were selected by the Japanese military or authorities. This is also another form of coercion, Yoshimi said.

Yoshimi pointed out that Japan routinely used human traffickers although even at that time, transporting women from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan to other countries through force, enticement, or trade was considered a crime.

He provided further documentation. One is that a former Yomiuri Shimbun reporter, who was sent to Burma during the war, in his memoir wrote that a Korean woman was deceived into working at a comfort station. The other is that a former military surgeon recalled his experience in China that military officials refused to release a Japanese comfort woman even though they found out that she was sold to a comfort station owner after being kidnapped.

Refuting the Osaka mayor’s argument that involvement of the Japanese military in the sex slave system is tantamount to control of the sex industry by law enforcement, Yoshimi said that judging from official documents regarding the establishment and operations of comfort stations, it is obvious that the Japanese military authority created, maintained, and expanded the system.

Related past article:

> Academic demands retraction of Osaka mayor’s remark on ‘comfort women’ [October 24, 2012]