WILPF Australia’s Response to Japanese MP’s denial over the use of Comfort Women

14 July 2007

Embassy of Japan in Canberra
Ambassador Mr. Ueda
112 Empire Circuit,
YARRALUMLA ACT 2600

Your Excellency,

We write following the placement of a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post of 14 June 2007 by a group of Japanese Members of Parliament and others denying that the Japanese Imperial Army forced hundreds of thousands of young women and girls into sexual slavery during World War II.

The advertisement was published under the title, "THE FACTS". It was signed by professors, journalists, political commentators and twenty-nine members of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, thirteen from the Democratic Party of Japan and two independents. In the advertisement, the claim was made that "no historical document has ever been found by historians or research organisations that positively demonstrates that women were forced against their will into prostitution by the Japanese army. The Ianfu (comfort women) who were embedded with the Japanese army were not, as is commonly reported, 'sex slaves'. They were working under a system of licensed prostitution that was commonplace around the world at the time." The text of the advertisement went on to add that many of the women made more money than field officers "and even generals".

We write now on behalf of the Australian Section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom to communicate to you our profound disappointment at this public denial by MPs of the actual facts of the horrors endured by the women who were taken into the Comfort System.
From evidence given by Ms Kim Haksun of South Korea and by Adelaide woman Ms Jan Ruff O'Herne at the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal held in Tokyo in December 2000, it is clear that this was indeed a system of military sexual slavery set up by the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII.

From evidence at the Tribunal and from speaking with Jan Ruff O'Herne herself, we well know that under this system, so-called "comfort stations" were set up wherever Japanese troops went.

It is now widely and well known that hundreds of thousands of women and girls throughout Asia under Japanese rule or military occupation were deceived or abducted into the system. Socially vulnerable and marginalised women were often the primary targets. After the war, few came home. Many were killed or simply abandoned at the end of the war. The few who survived the war were often kept away from their homes by a sense of shame until at last in 1991 the survivors began to speak out.

These crimes have also been catalogued by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Radhika Coomaraswamy, in her report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 1996 (E/CN.4/1996/53/Add.1) and also by the UN Special Rapporteur, Gay J. McDougall, in her report on systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during armed conflict (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1998/13).

We recall that earlier this year, Prime Minister Abe also claimed that there was no evidence the Japanese Imperial Army had coerced the Comfort Women into sexual servitude. However, around the time of the March 2007 visit of Australian Prime Minister John Howard to Japan, Mr. Abe stated that he did stand by Japan's 1993 apology to the Comfort Women. We welcomed this and also Mr. Abe's statement in late April during a visit to the United States of "deep sympathy" for the women concerned.

We are of the view that the Government of Japan should take seriously the sentiments expressed in the United States House of Representatives Resolution 121 that calls on Japan to account honestly for its past and to make full reparations to the Comfort Women. As noted by the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, although Japan has taken a leadership role in areas such as the environment and humanitarian protection, it has not acted with honour in respect of the Comfort Women.

Your Excellency, in light of these considerations, we respectfully request that you inform Prime Minister Abe that we would welcome a statement that he will take positive steps to acknowledge Japan's responsibility to the thousands of women horribly affected by the Comfort System.

We would also be grateful if you could communicate to your Government our view that it is well past the time when the Japanese Government should pay adequate reparations to the women concerned.

Yours sincerely,
Cathy Picone and Ruth Russell
Joint National Coordinators