update: Growing Chorus Slams War-Brothel Remarks

[donsu]

http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=2214&eeid=5136166&_sitecat=1505&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=1&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt


Women's rights activists in the Philippines and lawmakers in South Korea on Friday denounced comments by Japan's nationalist prime minister that there was no evidence Japanese soldiers forced women into sexual slavery during World War II.

-snip-

"We will not allow them to deny it just like that," said Rechilda Extremadura, executive director of Lila Pilipina, an organization of activists and former Filipino wartime sex slaves. "For us, good or bad, it is your history. If you are a responsible government, you are responsible enough to accept, acknowledge and be accountable."

-snip-

Hilaria Bustamante, an 81-year-old member of Lila Pilipina, said she was a sex slave in a Japanese garrison for more than a year.

She said she was heading home in 1942 after scavenging for rice when three Japanese soldiers stopped her on the road and seized her by the arms and legs and threw her into a truck "like a pig."

"Even as I struggled, I could not do anything. They slapped me, they punched me. I was only 16 then, what could I do?" she said. "They think we are like toilet paper that is just thrown after being used."

-snip-

The United States has avoided public involvement in historical disputes between Japan and its neighbors, though it has expressed concern that such conflicts could affect other issues, such as cooperation on efforts to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

Last month, however, the House of Representatives held hearings on a resolution calling for Japan to fully acknowledge and apologize for the sexual abuse.
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it's time for Japanese women to step up and shame PM Abe