Imperial Japan hush up

Imperial Japanese military paid bali residents to hush up wartime sex slavery

The Imperial Japanese military used money to cover up its use of sex slaves on Bali during the war, a group researchers from Kanto Kaguin University has said, citing a document found at the National Archives of Japan. According to the document, about 200 more women were also taken to the brothels. Using money worked really well and there was not one complaint related to sex slavery (read more on japantimes.co.jp)

On 4 August 1993, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei issued an official declaration on the issue of the so-called “comfort women”-women recruited to work in a large network of brothels operated by the Japanese military during the Asia-Pacific War, where many suffered terrible sexual and other physical and mental abuse, and many died. The Kono Declaration went on to express the government’s “sincere apologizes and remorse” to the women concerned. Kono’s statement resulted not only from demands for an apology from countries like Korea, where many “comfort women” had been recruited, but also from the work of many grassroots groups within Japan, who had worked tirelessly to seek recompensate for the victims. In 2007, during the first Abe administration, the cabinet issued a “decision” (kakugi kettei) which partially retracted the Kono Declaration, denying that Japanese military or government officials had been personally involved in forcible recruitment of “comfort women”

There was a huge debate over “comfort women” issues when I was in high school because Japanese government argued that it was inappropriate to teach their children about sex slavery in history classes. Their argument was that they needed to gather more data to verify the legitimacy of the facts associated with Japanese imperial army’s involved in coercing girls and women to work for brothels throughout Asia during the second world war 2. I am not sure why it is inappropriate to teach the children the truth and education is the only way to improve the long-term tensions Japan has had with East Asian countries especially China and South Korea. Maybe elementary school children are too young to learn about this but definitely Japanese government should include this important fact in history books used for the secondary education. It is not a matter of arguing the number of comfort women, who were being coerced into sex slavery or it is absolutely ridiculous for Japanese historians and journalists to argue that some of them were compensated. It does not matter if there were 100 women or 2000 women victims of sexual slaves. The fact is that victims of this horrendous crimes committed by Japanese Imperial army have been suffering from physical and emotional pain to this date. If acknowledging and pledging to never repeat such crimes can help heal these women, Japanese government should mend the past and come up with more comprehensive plans to show the neighboring countries and the world how they are going to fully own the responsibilities and teach their children never to repeat this again. In 1993, Japan officially released an “apology” on the sex slavery but they could have done more to own their responsibilities. Once again, this is a very controversial issue without immediate resolutions, as Japanese government will never bring upon shame on the Japanese emperor and his family by actually admitting the war time atrocities.