The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on International Relations has unanimously passed a resolution on Japan’s "military comfort women." It is significant in that this is the first time members of the U.S. Congress have spoken with a common voice about the issue. The Japanese government should take this resolution seriously. Until now, the international effort to ascertain the truth about comfort women and make those involved bear responsibility has taken place mostly at the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Now we hope to see U.S. Congress and Washington become actively involved, as well.
The resolution clearly defines Imperial Japan’s mobilization of comfort women as "sexual enslavement of young women" and one of the greatest cases of human trafficking in the 21st century. It is only natural that people try to hold the Japanese government responsible for such historic crimes. The resolution calls on the Japanese government to admit its responsibility and not do so in vague terms, educate current and future generations about what happened, and consider appropriate compensation. By doing so, the resolution presents the minimum of a framework for resolving the issue.
The Japanese government has acted in a petty manner, as it lobbied against a resolution on the issue from the U.S. and tried to have the language softened. The result has been that in 2001 and 2005 similar resolutions failed to reach a vote. This latest resolution was scheduled to be voted on in late June of this year, around the time of the U.S.-Japan summit, but voting was postponed. The language has been changed, making it the "Imperial Japanese Army" from the "Japanese government" that operated comfort women centers, and it now notes that in 1993 Japan expressed a sense of apology and set up the Asian Women’s Fund to try to make atonement. If you just look at certain sections, it seems as if Japan has truly done a great deal to make up for what took place.
Japanese chief cabinet minister Shinzo Abe - the man who is about to be Japan’s next prime minister - says the Japanese military never had any comfort women. When the public television network NHK tried to air a special program about the subject, it suddenly decided against running it, and the suspicion is that there was "outside pressure." We ask of Abe: Are the U.N. and the U.S. fabricating the comfort women issue in order to push Japan into a corner?
As stated in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, crimes like genocide, sexual slavery, and sexual violence are crimes against humanity, for which statutes of limitation do not apply. The U.S. Congress resolution says that the comfort women issue is one relating to human rights in the past but also in the present. Japan needs to recognize that the only way to deal with the issue is to disclose all documentation, admit government responsibility, and pay appropriate compensation. The Korean government must also do what it can to make sure this happens.
[Editorial] U.S. speaks up about Japan’s crimes against humanity |
