Japan top court rejects WW2 sex slaves damage suit

April 27, 2007 - (Reuters) Two Chinese women who said they had been kidnapped and forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers during World War Two lost their case for compensation at Japan's Supreme Court on Friday.

The top court upheld a Tokyo High Court ruling from March 2005, which acknowledged that the two former "comfort women", as they are known in Japan, were forced into sexual servitude, but rejected their demands for compensation, saying the matter had been settled under a 1952 peace treaty between Japan and China.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, now in Washington for a summit with U.S. President George W. Bush, set off a furore overseas when he denied in March that there was evidence the government or military were directly involved in kidnapping the women.

Abe has since apologised for their suffering and repeated that he stands by a 1993 apology acknowledging official involvement in setting up and managing the military brothels.

Many historians say thousands of women, mostly Asian, were forced to work at the wartime brothels.

From:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/T161622.htm