A Japanese government delegation on Tuesday said the issue of comfort women was made up on the basis of a fictional story and there is no document confirming that they were forced into sexual servitude, during a session with the United Nations in Geneva, Switerzland.
Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama, head of the Japanese delegation, made the remarks during a periodic review held by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) under the United Nations Human Rights Council.
In his opening speech, Shinsuke Sugiyama claimed that Japan only became a member state of the CEDAW in 1985, so problems that happened before that time should not be discussed in the session.
L. Hofmeister, a member of the CEDAW from Austria, refuted Sugiyama’s claim.
"Would you be so kind as to explain the legal status of the bilateral agreement between Japan and the Republic of Korea, and how to implement it? What about Japan's obligations and the international human rights law concerning victims of other countries, for instance, China and Philippines? How to implement the recommendations of a number of concluding observations of this committee, but also of other entities, UN entities," said Hofmeister.
Sugiyama, in response, said the comfort women issue was made up based on the false accounts of late Japanese novelist Seiji Yoshida, and was later considered as political and diplomatic issue after the media’s misleading reports.
"As what is said in the answers submitted to the committee, in early 1990s when the comfort women issue became a political and diplomatic problem between Japan and the Republic of Korea, the Japanese government conducted a through investigation, but there was no document confirming that the Japanese government or army forced comfort women into sex servitude," said Sugiyama.
He also claimed that the Japanese and South Korean governments reached an agreement on comfort women last year and solved the problem "finally and irreversibly." As for the other countries mentioned by the committee members, Sugiyama said Japan had reached agreements with those countries and the international community on the issue of compensation for World War II and had "fully" solved the comfort women issue with relevant countries, through legal means, including personal compensation.
Zou Xiaoqiao, a member of the CEDAW committee, said Japan's claims are unacceptable.
"History is history. No one can change and deny the history or historical facts that happened, even 70 years ago. Now from your statement, I found that the stance of the Japanese government is actually contradictory. On one hand, you said you deny the history, you deny the issue of comfort women. One the other hand, you're talking about how you felt so pleased to reach an agreement between the Japanese government and the Republic of Korea. According to you, if there is no such issue, why did the Japanese government have to reach an agreement with the Republic of Korea and why did the Japanese government issue a statement in 1993, which acknowledged the first time that some administrative and military members were directly involved in recruiting women including tens of thousands of South Koreans who were forced to provide sex for Imperial Japanese troops before and during World War II," said Zou.
After the session, Zou said the agreement between Japan and South Korea is far from proving the issue is fully solved.
She said other countries including the Philippines, East Timor, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand are also involved.
"When the Japanese government really realizes the problem and wants to start anew in the international community, it's only way out is to properly handle its history problem," said Zou. More on: newscontent.cct...
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