CAMPAIGN: JAPAN: Stop Denying The 'Comfort Women' Justice
Historians believe Japan forced up to 200,000 Chinese and Korean women to be sex slaves during WWII. Women who survived — and weren't shamed into silence – have described being recruited for labor, then beaten and raped by as many as 40 Japanese officers a day.
The Japanese government still won't admit these women were actually kidnapped and raped. And now Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto has decided to give his take on the atrocities: rape and kidnapping were "necessary" to sate the lust and harness the virility of Japan's soldiers.
“Anyone can understand that the system of comfort women was necessary to provide respite for a group ofhigh-strung, rough and tumble crowd of men braving their lives under a storm of bullets,” Hashimoto said. He also questioned whether the women were really coerced and claimed comfort women were part of “a necessary system to maintain military discipline."
This is a slap in the face to the women who went through this ordeal, a cowardly move from a government that waited until most of these women were dead before broaching the topic at all.Please, join us in condemning Mayor Hashimoto's atrocious commentary and calling on the Japanese to admit blame and begin compensation talks.
PETITION TO JAPANESE GOVERNMENT: We condemn the rape apologist statements made by Mayor Toru Hasimoto on Japan's "comfort women," and call on government leaders to admit their blame and begin compensation talks immediately.