Background on the “Comfort Women”

[Japanese Military Sexual Slavery] Issue
January 12, 2017, Comfort Women Justice Coalition

Why should there be a Comfort Women Memorial in San Francisco,
when the crimes involving them occurred in Asia during WWII?

Global Relevance: Based on the study conducted by a UN Special Rapporteur, it has been concluded that the Japanese military sexual slavery system [“Comfort Women system”] constitutes a “crime against humanity.” This is a prosecutable criminal offense in international criminal law. As such, this is not merely Japan’s problem or that of the victim countries, but an issue of global justice.

*Local Impacts: Japan’s imperialist aggression throughout Asia-Pacific (in partnership with Nazi Germany and Italy) impacted millions of people, many of whom settled in San Francisco Bay Area, making an indelible mark on our City’s development and character. They, and their descendants, are a key constituency of this city, and we have a collective duty to educate everyone about this shared history.

*Moral Tradition: San Francisco has a long and proud tradition of honoring survivors of atrocities and violence, including the Holocaust Memorial at Lincoln Park. A memorial symbolizing the victims’ struggles for justice, and the honoring the resilience of the human spirit in seeking peace and reconciliation, is an asset to this City for which respect for human dignity is a defining creed.

*Ongoing Violation: Although the Japanese Military sexual slavery system ended after WWII, it remains a current, urgent, present-day issue. In July 2014, the United Nations Human Rights committee stated, “The Committee is…concerned about re-victimization of the former comfort women by attacks on their reputations, including some by public officials and some that are encouraged by the [Japanese] State Party’s equivocal position”; “The Committee is concerned by the [Japanese] State party’s contradictory position that the “comfort women” were not “forcibly deported”; “The Committee considers that this situation reflects ongoing violations of the victims’ human rights, as well as a lack of effective remedies available to them as victims of past human rights violations.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, stressed, again in August of 2014: “This is not an issue relegated to history. It is a current issue, as human rights violations against these women continue to occur as long as their rights to justice and reparation are not realised.”

In March 2016, in a joint statement, human rights experts insisted that Japan “should understand that this issue will not be considered resolved so long as all the victims, including from other Asian countries, remain unheard, their expectations unmet and their wounds left wide open.”

Why is it so important to remember Comfort Women now?

*Organized, official distortion and denialism: There is a systematic attempt at permanent erasure of WWII-era atrocities (including the Nanjing Massacre and Japanese military sexual slavery), spearheaded by Japan’s highest levels of government and the Prime Minister himself. The current government is actively working to distort its own troubled past in Japan and around the world, in particular, the ‘erasure’ of Comfort Women issue, as part of a global campaign to “improve Japan’s image.”

Concerted Erasure of History: Japan’s move to delete references of its wrongdoing during WWII from its own textbooks has resulted in the removal of Comfort Women issue (and the Nanjing Massacre) from education curricula in Japanese Textbooks. There has also been pressure on US Publishers (McGraw-Hill) to do the same (which led to swift protests by prominent US scholars). In fact, the current Prime Minister argues that it has “robbed postwar Japanese of their pride.” In April 2016, CEDAW admonished Japanese leaders for ongoing disparaging statements about the comfort women and urged their reinstatement in junior high school textbooks.

*Historical Revisionism: A New York Times article corroborates that “Japanese conservatives like Mr. Abe have bridled at historical depictions of Japan as the sole aggressor in the war, saying that it fought to liberate Asia from Western domination.” The US Congressional Research Service noted that Shinzo Abe has attempted to discredit or undermine accepted historical relevant facts.

*Risk of Recurrence: Refusal to admit to past wrongdoing leaves open the chances of recurrence. Sexual Trafficking is an issue of global concern. These crimes afflict tens of millions each year globally, including in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we must remain vigilant. Rashida Manjoo, U.N. Special Rapporteur has stated, “The demand for acknowledgement, truth, justice and reparations for acts of violence against women, is a global challenge that my mandate continues to witness. The institutionalisation of memory is crucial, both to honour victims as well as to understand and avoid such violations in the future. It is my hope that civil society actors to continue to raise public awareness at the national and international level on this issue, and the need for acknowledgement, accountability and reparations”.

In December 2015, there was an “agreement” between and Japan. Doesn’t this settle the Comfort Women issue? Most importantly, this agreement: is repudiated by surviving Korean ‘Comfort Women’ and the global community; was produced with no consultation with victims, who were shut out of any part of the negotiations; leaves out ‘Comfort Women’ from other countries of the Asia Pacific; prohibits South Korea from ever raising the issue in international fora, including the United Nations, effectively leaving Korean victims without a governmental advocate; and
demands the removal of existing comfort women statues.

UN human rights experts were so appalled by this ‘agreement’ and its terms, that they took the rare action of releasing a joint statement on this issue, followed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. The U.N High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Hussein stated in his annual report on human rights around the world, reiterated that numerous UN mechanisms had questioned the terms of this ‘agreement.’ This ‘agreement’ drew the ire of CEDAW which regretted that Japan did not take a “victim-centered approach” and urged Japan to do more to solve this issue. It is also challenged whether this “agreement” really exists as such: no written or signed agreement has ever been produced to document or codify exactly what the agreement consists of Different interpretations of its content have been offered by Korean and Japanese governments the agreement was never ratified by the national assemblies of either country in all its ambiguity, inconsistency, and contradiction, it is very likely to be repealed or disavowed by any incoming Korean governments — in fact, many argue it has started to unravel already.

Hasn’t the Japanese government apologized?

There has been no official government apology. Numerous “apology statements” have been made by individual government officials (see information packet prepared by Japanese Consulate containing excerpts of such statements here); however, unless an apology is adopted and ratified by the cabinet or the Parliament, they cannot be said to be official government action. The recent Abe “apology” (and others) are personal but not official, and as with other past statements are (and have been) subject to equivocation, disavowal, or flat-out contradiction.

To date, the Japanese legislature has not passed a single resolution of acknowledging state responsibility for the “Comfort Women” or other atrocities committed by the Japanese military during WWII. The “1993 Kono statement” delivered by the Chief Cabinet Secretary was the closest admission of coercion by the Japanese Military. However, in June 2014, the Japanese Cabinet did submit a report stating that “there is no evidence of coercion,” effectively repudiating the Kono statement; thus, its disavowal is currently the official position of the Japanese Government.

Because these apologies are not official, they are preceded and followed by contradictory statements, actions, and policies. For example, throughout the years that these ‘apologies’ were being issued, Mr. Abe has flat-out denied Japanese military responsibility for the comfort women system, and continued to insist on the Parliament floor and publicly that to succumb to such narrative about Japanese history is to be “masochistic”. US Congressional Resolution 121 condemned Shinzo Abe for these revisionist remarks, despite “volumes of evidence” to the contrary.

In 2015, Japan tripled its global PR budget to $500 million to “improve Japan’s image,” including an elaborate global campaign to rewrite its role in World War II by denying its role with regard to “Comfort Women.” Japan’s demand to remove “Comfort Women” memorial erected near the Japanese Embassy/Consulate in Seoul and Busan, as well as Japan’s interference in various municipalities around the world (including here in San Francisco) to prevent remembrances of “Comfort Women” also speak volumes about where the government’s sincerity lies in its ‘apology.’ This is an important context within which to evaluate Japan’s apology.

Is the memorial “hateful” and will it subject the innocent people of Japanese ancestry to vengeful persecution?

No. There have been no reports of actual incidents affecting people of Japanese ancestry. Numerous US towns have been subject to outcry among the Japanese MPs and citizens alike, in response to a continuous stream of news in Japanese media outlets reporting Japanese were being persecuted by Koreans due to the memorial (still ongoing in Japanese language media at present). However, police and even FBI databases on hate crimes and reports of suspected incidents in any of those areas have not once turned up any actual evidence. See here.

Lisa Nakamura’s family suffered Japanese American Internment during WWII and fought for redress for Japanese Americans. A lifelong Bay Area resident and Japanese American community advocate, she is a clinical psychologist by day, deeply involved with teen girls and young women from the streets who had been trafficked and sexually violated. Read her widely circulated column here.

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