End to Long-Running Sex Slavery Dispute?

[+ quoththeraven]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-japan-reach-settlement-on-wartime-korean-sex-slaves/2015/12/28/e0578237-0a00-4f10-8491-1d85e72890b3_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_skoreajapan-3am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

 

I hope this works out, but Japan should keep in mind no one (that I know of) was ever prosecuted for this as the war crime it was.

 

This kind of thing is also why I am opposed to legalizing sex work and regulating it, as opposed to decriminalizing it. When the state gets involved, corruption and state-sanctioned trafficking may not be far behind.

 

I am opposed to removing the statue of comfort women opposite the Japanese embassy in Seoul. It happened. Let's not cover up the past to protect the feelings of the government that perpetrated it.

 

(Mods, if you feel this belongs in Politics, War & Religion forum, please move it there.)

[rvwnsd]

It might end the official dispute between the two nations, but I suspect the Korean people will be less forgiving. I can't fault them for that.

[marylander1940]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-japan-reach-settlement-on-wartime-korean-sex-slaves/2015/12/28/e0578237-0a00-4f10-8491-1d85e72890b3_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_skoreajapan-3am:homepage/story

 

I hope this works out, but Japan should keep in mind no one (that I know of) was ever prosecuted for this as the war crime it was.

 

This kind of thing is also why I am opposed to legalizing sex work and regulating it, as opposed to decriminalizing it. When the state gets involved, corruption and state-sanctioned trafficking may not be far behind.

 

I am opposed to removing the statue of comfort women opposite the Japanese embassy in Seoul. It happened. Let's not cover up the past to protect the feelings of the government that perpetrated it.

 

(Mods, if you feel this belongs in Politics, War & Religion forum, please move it there.)

 

$8.3 million?

 

 

[BtmBearDad]

Many equally atrocious acts were committed in the Pacific Theatre as in the European - but Japan pretty much got a pass on a lot. War crime trails, reparations were minor when compared with what was happening in Europe. There have been a number of lawsuits that weren't successful. This is welcome news. I hope the comforts this settlement will buy these ladies will enable them to enjoy their time left in dignity and comfort.

[+ quoththeraven]

It might end the official dispute between the two nations, but I suspect the Korean people will be less forgiving. I can't fault them for that.

 

There already are naysayers.

 

Also -- and I get to say this because two out of four of my grandparents emigrated here from Korea -- Koreans are quite possibly the most persnickety, unforgiving group you could ever hope to meet. But in this case, Japan has danced around the facts quite a lot over the years, and the apologies have been half-hearted at best. This is not the full-throated denunciation people hoped for, but it's probably time to move on.

 

The cynic in me says Japan ran the clock out knowing it would have fewer victims to pay. Several years ago, I ran across a documentary on survivors that included footage of Japanese heckling former "comfort women" demonstrating in Tokyo, calling them "bitches" and "whores." That really upset me, particularly since the demonstrators resembled my (US-born) aunts.

[sincitymix]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-japan-reach-settlement-on-wartime-korean-sex-slaves/2015/12/28/e0578237-0a00-4f10-8491-1d85e72890b3_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_skoreajapan-3am:homepage/story

 

I hope this works out, but Japan should keep in mind no one (that I know of) was ever prosecuted for this as the war crime it was.

 

This kind of thing is also why I am opposed to legalizing sex work and regulating it, as opposed to decriminalizing it. When the state gets involved, corruption and state-sanctioned trafficking may not be far behind.

 

I am opposed to removing the statue of comfort women opposite the Japanese embassy in Seoul. It happened. Let's not cover up the past to protect the feelings of the government that perpetrated it.

 

(Mods, if you feel this belongs in Politics, War & Religion forum, please move it there.)

 

The Japanese do so like to cover up the whole ww2 era. When I lived in japan, I was talking to a Japanese student about ww2, and what was in our American text books. She was so shocked. She pulled out her textbook and showed me.. pretty much the Japanese position was that they were defending themselves against American and western aggression. Japan was attacked unprovoked. ww2 was pretty much a 2 paragraph white wash for Japanese history. nothing about comfort women, death marches, pearl harbor, rape of nanking etc etc.

 

when Japanese tourists go to Korea and actually visit the war museums.. they leave subdued and apologetic to the point of tears. they had no idea what japan had done to south korea, because japan refuses to acknowledge its role and actions during the war. It s all about honor and saving face.

[mike carey]

nothing about comfort women, death marches, pearl harbor, rape of nanking etc etc.

Death marches as you said, here Sandakan is the one that resonates most. Apart from that, the death railway is the big point of contention in Australia, and the sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur off the Australian coast near Brisbane. Japanese politician's visits to the Yasakuni Shrine still make the news here, although not with the visceral hostility they receive in South Korea and China.

[+ quoththeraven]

The Japanese do so like to cover up the whole ww2 era. When I lived in japan, I was talking to a Japanese student about ww2, and what was in our American text books. She was so shocked. She pulled out her textbook and showed me.. pretty much the Japanese position was that they were defending themselves against American and western aggression. Japan was attacked unprovoked. ww2 was pretty much a 2 paragraph white wash for Japanese history. nothing about comfort women, death marches, pearl harbor, rape of nanking etc etc.

 

when Japanese tourists go to Korea and actually visit the war museums.. they leave subdued and apologetic to the point of tears. they had no idea what japan had done to south korea, because japan refuses to acknowledge its role and actions during the war. It s all about honor and saving face.

 

Not to speak of the scars left by the Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea, which left many dead (my grandmother's father, first husband, and brother among them), and eventually required not only the adoption of Japanese names but the repudiation of the Korean language and its replacement by Japanese. That would be like French Canadians invading the US, insisting we speak and write Quebecois and adopt French names, and stopping all classes in and about English.

 

I guess Korea should encourage Japanese tourism so individual Japanese are able to learn the truth about what happened.

 

I will and can never condone one group, no matter how oppressed or what their history, occupying land where others have lived for many years because my grandparents fled such a situation. It would be disrespectful to them for me not to side with those whose land is taken over and occupied, like theirs was, instead of the occupiers.

[+ WilliamM]

Not to speak of the scars left by the Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea, which left many dead (my grandmother's father, first husband, and brother among them), and eventually required not only the adoption of Japanese names but the repudiation of the Korean language and its replacement by Japanese. That would be like French Canadians invading the US, insisting we speak and write Quebecois and adopt French names, and stopping all classes in and about English.

 

I guess Korea should encourage Japanese tourism so individual Japanese are able to learn the truth about what happened.

 

I will and can never condone one group, no matter how oppressed or what their history, occupying land where others have lived for many years because my grandparents fled such a situation. It would be disrespectful to them for me not to side with those whose land is taken over and occupied, like theirs was, instead of the occupiers.

 

In this case, a "like" is not enough. I have heard similar stories of other people with a Korean background.

[+ quoththeraven]

And those who thought most Koreans would not approve of this agreement were right. Here's what the proprietor of the Ask A Korean! blog has to say:

 

http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/01/korea-japan-agreement-on-comfort-women.html

 

Excerpt:

 

So what to do about this? This is the point at which TK parts company with majority of the Korean public. Many Koreans, including Korea's opposition party, are calling for nullifying the agreement. I do not think that is a wise course of action.

 

What Koreans want--naturally and correctly--is Japan's contrition over these crimes. Koreans want Japan to admit that Japan was wrong to colonize Korea, wrong to begin a global war, and wrong to conscript a million Koreans to serve as slaves for the machinery of war. Koreans want from Japan those admissions with sincere self-reflection about its crimes, minus all the bullshit evasive maneuvers that Japan has taken so far, including in this agreement.

 

I want the same exact thing. But I do not think that an international agreement would achieve that end--especially not the kind signed by Shinzo Abe.

 

I believe Koreans would be well served to stare down the unyielding reality, that the agreement is ultimately a political document, and politics is the art of the possible. What Koreans want is moral vindication. Politics can indeed achieve moral vindication. (Post-World War II Germany, for example.) But to achieve the moral vindication, one must keep playing the politics.

 

It is not practically possible for Korea to re-negotiate. A strong poker hand loses its strength after the round is over. The showdown, unfortunately, came and went; all the advantages that Korea did have previous to this agreement no longer exist. The fact that the Park Geun-hye administration failed to maximize its advantages is rage-inducing, but there is no reason to expect that Korea can do any better in the hypothetical next round.

 

However unsatisfying, the gains from this agreement are not insignificant. In a number of ways, this agreement is in fact a step forward from Japan's previous statements. Japan did recognize that the Japanese military was involved in the conscription of Comfort Women without the evasive qualification. (Previously, Japan recognized the military's involvement, but also insisted that the military usually did not recruit directly.) The Japanese government did speak of its "responsibility" without qualifiers like "moral responsibility" (notwithstanding Japan's subsequent attempt to characterize its payment as an anything-but-legal-reparations.) The agreement stated that Abe was speaking as the representative of the Japanese nation, not as a mere individual. Japan is paying money out of its government budget, not through private citizens' donations.

 

These gains are not nothing. Although they are inadequate standing alone, skillful politicking can capitalize them into serving the true end of justice. Although the Japanese government is attempting to wiggle away from its apology as soon as it is written down, the words of the apology have independent strength. Against the backdrop of the words like "with an involvement of the Japanese military authorities" and Japan's "responsibilities," Japan's further attempts of evasion can only become more technical, tendentious and petty.

 

The thing to do, then, is not to demand a new round of governmental apology from Japan; it is to simply hold Japan to the words onto which it just signed. There is enough in those words to compel Japan to recognize the wrong that it had committed. Specifically, Japan must be made to answer these basic questions regarding Comfort Women:

 

Is it true that the Japanese military operated rape centers, euphemistically called Comfort Stations, for the pleasure of its soldiers?

Is it true that the Japanese military staffed these rape centers with hundreds of thousands young women, some as young as 13 or 14 years old, who were kidnapped from Korea?

Was it wrong for Japan to operate these rape centers, where hundreds of thousands of Korean women were raped dozens of times, every day for years?

 

These questions should be asked over and over again, until there is an unqualified "yes" to all of these questions from every meaningful level of the Japanese society--including the government, the universities, the media, conservatives, liberals, everyone. And if anyone answers "no" to any one of the questions above, there is now a ready retort: why did the Japanese government sign a statement saying otherwise?