Comfort women ‘war-crime’ issue surfaces again

July 31 : Japanese prime minister has once again landed into problems over the issue of comfort women as US adopted a resolution on comfort women condemning Japan for induction of women in prostitution for their military in second world war.

The resolution reads that Japan should formally acknowledge, apologize and accept the historical responsibility in clear unequivocal manner for its imperial armed forces’ coercion of women in sex slavery known to the world as the comfort women.

The resolution termed the phenomenon as the greatest incident of human trafficking of 20 th century and called for Japan to apologize openly and in unambiguous manner for the war crime against women.

The controversy arose in March when Shinzo Abe made statements that there was no proof that the government or the military had forced the women into sex-slavery. Such statements evoked furious reactions from people of neighbouring countries and attracted criticism from international community.

Sometime ago news were in air that Japanese officials are trying to dilute the 1993 government statement which acknowledged the involvement of officials in the betrothals management.

Resolution also strongly asks Japan to reject any denial of such crimes by her military.

Some officials termed the heinous incident a business practice denying any official involvement though fresh documents supporting the official hand have been discovered.

This is to be noted that though Japan issued an apology statement in 1993 for the suffering of comfort women but was never given approval by Japanese parliament and never provided any compensation to the sufferers.

Japanese officials termed the resolution regrettable as Japan has already given extensive explanation to US on the issue. Japan has handled the comfort women issue with sincerity said chief cabinet secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki.

Resolution has come in the wake that some in Japan deny and distort the history and play a game of blame the victim said chairman of the house foreign affairs committee.

Recent development is another challenge before Abe who has not come out of the shock o f defeat in Upper House as US cooperation is the core of Japan’s diplomacy and very crucial for national security.

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