Comfort Women Issue Should Be Resolved by the UN
Sang Kyul Park August 4, 2012On 24th July, the five year anniversary of the adoption of a resolution about comfort women by the Japanese Army in the Visitor Center of the House of Commons was celebrated.
Bill Pascrell, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, claimed that comfort women is not a problem only between Korea and Japan and must be solved by the United Nations (UN). Bill Pascrell is one who makes an effort to protect the monument of comfort women in New Jersey. He said that he knew about Japan’s attempt to remove the memorial stone, but it would never happen, since he would not allow it. It was Michael Honda, U.S. House of Representative and member of the House of Commons, who proposed the resolution of the comfort women 5 years ago. He emphasized that Japan did not seem to regret, therefore people should be more concerned about the resolution constantly.
Noda Yoshihiko, consevative Prime Minister of Japan, made an announcement on 25th July recognizing that comfort women were brought by force to Japan. After President Lee Myung-bak asked strongly to change the attitude towards the matter of comfort women last December, Noda did not give any resolution, but it seemed that he realized that it was a serious problem.
Yamatani Eliko, the member of the Liberal Democratic Party, demanded to send a letter to USA that private traders recruited comfort women and that the Japanese government attempted to stop recruiters. However, Noda refuted that there was no evidence that Government was involved based on the Kono Statement, but still the fact that the Government was involved in the trouble could not be ignored. Kon’so statement is a result of an investigation about comfort women by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on August 1993. Kono’s Statement includes the facts that Korea argued and for that reason, Japan’s conservative organizations claimed that Kono Statement must be withdrawn. Then Yamatani claimed that Kono Statement did not mention the ‘brought by force’. Noda replied that military authorities were involved, directly or indirectly, in managing the comfort stations and transferring comfort women. He also said that the military authorities asked non-governmental businessmen to recruit the comfort women, but almost all of the comfort women was brought by force.
Japan used to deny Korea’s claim about the comfort women. Since the comfort women became an international issue, Japan should change it’s position and other countries including USA should recognize it as an important issue that must be resolved together.
Sources :
http://news.kukinews.com/article/view.asp?page=1&gCode=kmi&arcid=0006279038&cp=nv
http://www.segye.com/Articles/NEWS/INTERNATIONAL/Article.asp?aid=20120725023688&subctg1=&subctg2=