Comfort women supported by Canada

Japanese authorities, in the 1930s and during World War II, forced women into sexual slavery for Japanese military brothels, hoping that by providing easily accessible prostitutes, the morale and ultimately the military effectiveness of Japanese soldiers would be improved as well as the control of STDs. This “comfort women,” as they were called, came from Korea, China, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Dutch East Indies, Indonesia, and other Japanese-occupied territories. They were arrested on the streets, or induced by the offer of plenty of money, estimating around 200,000 victims. Women working at the brothels “most likely served 25 to 35 men a day,” some of them were not old enough to have started menstruating, and most cases also involved violence: “Fifteen-year-old young girls were subjected to torture and raped by countless men for weeks, months and years on end.”But Canada’s parliament has unanimously passed a motion calling on Japan to apologise for forcing women to serve as wartime sex slaves and “take full responsibility for the involvement of the Japanese Imperial Forces in the system of forced prostitution”.The Japanese government has set up an Asia Women’s Fund which conveys Japan’s apologies for crimes committed against women during WWII through direct donations from the Japanese public. Despite this, according to the Japanese government, individual comfort women don’t deserve compensation.To add more controversy, Japan said it regretted Canadian’s vote, and it would not help bilateral relations.How nice is to simply deny a horrifying past. Too bad that thousands of women that were enslaved, raped, tortured, utilized and abused, can’t do the same.

Filed Under History & traditions, Human Rights, Politics