Help comfort women find justice

In his recently published Chinese edition of On Taiwan (台灣論), Japanese cartoonist Kobayashi Yoshinori (小林善紀) quoted Taiwanese business leader Shi Wen-lung (許文龍) as saying that the Japanese government could not possibly have forced comfort women to work against their will, that the Japanese military was very concerned about human rights at the time, that the job of comfort woman was a lucrative one and that all women therefore entertained a hope to enter the military -- far from being coerced to join it. The job provided them with a stable income enabling them to save money, Kobayashi quoted Shi as saying, and that hygiene standards couldn't have been better.

"It simply takes an investigation to bring the whole truth to light, so why has Japan not conducted any probe into the event?" Kobayashi quoted Shi as asking. The Japanese government has only made the uproar bigger by blindly offering apologies, according to Shi. Tsai Kuan-tsan (蔡焜燦) was quoted by Kobayashi as saying he found it incomprehensible that a court in Yamaguchi Prefecture ruled in favor of the comfort women in a lawsuit. Tsai said if these women could get compensation, then Japanese women who were compelled to prostitute themselves to US soldiers in order to ensure the safety of all Japanese women, should also get state compensation.

I really hope those statements did not come from Shi's and Tsai's lips, but were an absurd drama staged by Japanese right-wingers who dare not face history.

The plight of World War II comfort women came to light in the 1990s. In December 1991, the Japanese government began an extensive probe into archives at institutions both at home and abroad, as well as interviews with the then military and government officials, comfort women, managers of comfort stations, nearby residents and historians. The results were released on July 6, 1992. Then chief Cabinet secretary Yohei Kono, now foreign minister, reiterated the investigation results on Aug. 4, 1993, and admitted: "Comfort stations were operated in response to the request of the military authorities of the day, that the Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women.

"The recruitment of comfort women was conducted mainly by private recruiters at the request of the military. The government study revealed that in many cases they were recruited against their will, through coaxing or coercion, and that, at times, administrative and military personnel directly took part in the recruitment. Those women lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere. Undeniably, this was an act, with the involvement of the military authorities of the day, that severely injured the honor and dignity of many women.

"The Government of Japan would like to take this opportunity once again to extend its sincere apologies and remorse to all those, irrespective of place of origin, who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.

"We shall face squarely the historical facts as described above instead of evading them, and take them to heart as lessons of history. We hereby reiterate our firm determination never to repeat the same mistake by forever engraving such issues in our memories through the study and teaching of history."