Comfort women: Encyclopedia II - Comfort women - Responsibility and compensation

Comfort women - Responsibility and compensation

Japan regards all World War II compensation claims to be settled.

Both South Korea and Japan mutually confirm that all claims between the countries and their people have been settled completely and finally by the Treaty on Basic Relations and Agreement of Economic Cooperation and Property Claims between Japan and the Republic of Korea in 1965. Both countries confirmed that the treaty includes all claims from North Korea.

Despite this, in 1990, the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery filed suit, demanding apologies and compensation. Several surviving comfort women also independently filed suit in the Tokyo District Court. More suits followed in the ensuing years. It was widely expected that the court would reject all of these claims on the basis of the statutes of limitation or on the basis that the state is immune from civil suits in court on the matter of war time conduct. However, these suits have helped to revive and sustain the issue of comfort women in Japan as well as in the international media.

Initially the Japanese government denied any official connection to the wartime brothels; in June of 1990, the Japanese government declared that all brothels were run by private contractors. However, in 1992, the historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki discovered incriminating documents in the archives of Japan's National Defense Agency indicating that the military was directly involved in running the brothels (by, for example, selecting the agents who recruited or coerced women into service). Since then, Japan's official position has been one of admitting "moral but not legal" responsibility. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone famously stated in his memoir published in 1978 that he set up a comfort house for his troops when he was a navy lieutenant in charge of accounting.

Following official admission of a military connection to the brothels in 1992, the debate has shifted to consideration of evidence and testimony of coercive recruitment of comfort women during the war. In a number of mock trials (without cross-examination), surviving women have testified of being subjected to coercion and rape. In 1995, Japan set up an "Asia Women's Fund" for atonement in the form of material compensation and to provide each surviving comfort woman with an unofficial signed apology from the prime minister. But because of the unofficial nature of the fund, many comfort women have rejected these payments and continue to seek an official apology and compensation.

However, on 17 January, 2005, additional documents detailing the minutes of Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea were released by South Korean government. They suggest that the South Korean government agreed not to demand further compensation, either at the government or individual level, after receiving $800 million in grants and soft loans from Japan as compensation for its 1910-45 colonial rule, and to take all responsibility for individual cases instead of Japan. This further reduces the likelihood of legal proceedings resulting in any formal admission of responsibility.

Clearly time is on the side of the Japanese government. The number of surviving comfort women has dwindled from many thousands to a mere handful, all of whom will have passed away in another few years.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Responsibility and compensation", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki