They were not prostitutes

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the target of international outrage last week when he said that, "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion". This was in relation to the hundreds of thousands of women who were forced into Japanese military brothels or "comfort stations" all over Asia during World War II. This is despite what historians say that around 200,000 women, many of them very young and mostly from China and Korea, and even from the Philippines, served as sex slaves to the Japanese military in the 1930's and 40's. Accounts of abuse have been verified by the victims themselves, witnesses, and even by former Japanese soldiers.

This outrage is understandable, especially since the Japanese Government is yet to fully acknowledge and publicly apologize for this dastardly part of their history. The closest thing to an official apology came in 1993, when then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono apologized to the victims of sex slavery. This apology was criticized as half hearted by former "comfort women" because it was not approved by the Parliament.

There are prominent Japanese politicians and scholars who still deny direct military involvement and the use of force in rounding up the comfort women, blaming private contractors for the abuses. There is even a group that is lobbying for the revision of Kono's 1993 apology, the one that Prime Minister Abe, in a recent statement that was the response to the adverse reaction to his controversial statement, now declares he will stand by.

The Philippines is one of those countries whose women have been violated by this heinous wartime atrocity, a horrible act against, not only women, but to all of humanity and must never be allowed to be repeated ever again. We must take an active stance in the effort to convince the Japanese government to admit to these acts, to issue an official apology, and then make remunerations to the victims, who, at the very least, do not deserve to be called common prostitutes by any history book anywhere in the world.*