Lawyers urge Japan to atone for wartime sexual slavery

Sunday 12th December, 05:58 AM JST

TOKYO —

The Japanese and South Korean bar associations jointly called on the Japanese government Saturday to pass a law to pay reparations to Korean ‘‘comfort women’’ who were forced into wartime brothels for the Japanese military.

The Japan Federation of Bar Associations and the Korean Bar Association issued the appeal at a symposium they organized in Tokyo on the issue of Korean women victimized in the course of Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

They also urged the government to acknowledge that the operations of the brothels at various countries constitute human rights abuses that impinge upon international laws and to issue an official apology to the victims as part of the envisioned law.

In addition, they called on the government to set up committees of investigation at both Diet and government levels to shed light on the full extent of the abuses.

At the symposium, an 81-year-old South Korean woman, who once worked as a sex slave, said in Japanese via video, ‘‘I am indignant as I was tortured, so I want (the Japanese government) to issue a clear-cut apology and pay financial reparations.’‘

‘‘This is my last word to the Japanese government,’’ she said.

South Korean lawyer Yang Jong Suk said, ‘‘Now that the Democratic Party of Japan, which had submitted repeatedly in the past to the Diet a bill with clear reference to the legal responsibility of the Japanese government, has become the governing party, it is in a position to enact laws realistically.’‘

Japanese lawyer Kunio Aitani said, ‘‘There is no longer any dispute between Japan and South Korea’’ over what direction remedial measures should take and what steps should be taken to solve the issue of wartime sexual slavery.

The two associations ‘‘would like to work to actualize these proposals to bring about a definitive solution’’ to the issue, he added.