Japan to end aid for 'comfort women'

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5488083

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will dissolve a private fund set up to compensate women, mostly Asian, who were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers during World War Two in March 2007, saying it had reached its goals.

Japan has not paid direct compensation to any of the estimated 200,000 mostly Asian women forced to work in brothels for the Japanese military before and during World War Two, saying all claims were settled by peace treaties that ended the war.

Instead, in 1995 Tokyo set up the Asian Women's Fund, a private group with heavy government support, to make cash payments to surviving wartime "comfort women". snip

Historians estimate that during World War Two as many as 200,000 women, mostly from the Korean Peninsula, were forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military brothels.

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[Disfronted]

1. Interesting

The fund paid out a semi-respectable $300,000 (including medical care) per victim. Not compensation of course (there is not enough money in the world) but better than I expected before I read the article.

Edit - To be clear, only 285 women were helped here. That still leaves 199,715 to be dealt with.

[lebkuchen]

2. It's been only around ten years that Japan admitted comfort women existed

This funding should continue until all the victims are compensated or deceased.

Peace treaties don't mean squat. What peace have these women found?

[struggle4progress]

3. That didn't last long. I bet more women could prove they'd been ...

... sexual slaves than anybody wanted to admit.

[NNN0LHI]

4. I suspect most are dead

The Japanese soldiers did not hesitate to kill these women by what I have read on the subject.

Don

[struggle4progress]

7. That makes sense.

[NNN0LHI]

8. It really is a sad story

http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20030626a1.html

United States Embassy
Tokyo, Japan

Welcome to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. This site contains information on U.S. policy,
public affairs, visas and consular services.

<snip>Whereas the Government of Japan during the colonial occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands during World War II organized the subjugation and kidnapping of young women for the sole purpose of sexual servitude, known to the world as `comfort women';

Whereas the enslavement of comfort women was officially commissioned and orchestrated by the Government of Japan to include gang rape, forced abortions, sexual violence, human trafficking, and numerous other crimes against humanity;

Whereas the comfort women were girls as young as 13 years of age or women separated from their own children;

Whereas the comfort women were either abducted from their homes or lured into sexual servitude under false pretenses;

Whereas many comfort women were eventually killed or forced to commit suicide upon cessation of hostilities;

[Cori Cycle]

5. What happen to

compensation for teenage hookers GI used during Vietnam war? We ought to compensate them.

[NNN0LHI]

6. More should be done for the thousands of children fathered by American GI's

They are no longer children, but they are still being discriminated against in their own country due to their American heritage. They have a difficult life in Vietnam.

Don

[DrWeird]

9. I guess I missed that in history class.

When did the government start forcing teenage hookers to service GIs?

[oppositionmember]

10. They should descend on Tokyo & Japanese embassies.

Pretty disgraceful example of ducking your obligations, really.