NEWS - Women-Japan: in Two Years, a

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Subject: NEWS - Women-Japan: in Two Years, a Tribunal on Violence Against

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Women-Japan: in Two Years, a Tribunal on Violence Against Women

            Inter Press Service
            17-DEC-98

            TOKYO, (Dec. 17) IPS - Women's groups across Asia have
            set December 2000 as the launch date for what will be the
            first war crime tribunal focusing on violence against women
            during armed conflicts. 

            The Women's International War Crime Tribunal is actually a
            response to the cry for justice made by thousands of women
            forced to be sex slaves of Japanese soldiers during World
            War II. But women's rights activists say it will also
address
            other conflicts during which women faced systematic rape,
            sexual slavery and other violence. 

            "The tribunal is one of the most important initiatives in
the
            struggle for justice for women whose suffering has gone and
            continue to go unnoticed by the world," says Yayoi Matsui,
of
            the Japanese chapter of the umbrella group Violence Against
            Women in War Network (VAWW), which comprises women's
            organizations from around the world. 

            She adds that while the tribunal will really be a formal
legal
            proceeding, non-government organizations will nonetheless
            be presenting evidence that will support the points of view
of
            women who have been abused but have been denied the
            opportunity to have governments acknowledge what
            happened to them, much less get justice. 

            Foremost among these cases are those of the so-called
            "comfort women" forced to provide sex to the Japanese
            troops who had invaded and occupied their countries in
            World War II. 

            Research by various scholars indicates that Korean and
            Chinese women made up the bulk of the comfort women,
            although many Filipino, Indonesian, Thai and even Dutch
            women also became the sex slaves of the Japanese
            soldiers. 

            Some were even merely girls at the time, with recorded
            cases of 11-year-olds among the soldiers' sex slaves. 

            For several years, the Japanese government denied the
            existence of "comfort stations" set up by the now defunct
            Japanese Imperial Army all over Asia to service soldiers. 

            But following research by Japanese scholars that proved
            their existence as well as the growing international uproar
            regarding the plight of the comfort women, Tokyo decided to
            set up an Asian Women's Fund to provide medicine and
            social welfare and financial help to the ex-comfort women. 

            The Fund, however, is privately financed. Many of the
            comfort women, now in their late 60s and 70s, have said
            they want compensation to come from the Japanese
            government itself, as well as an official apology for what
they
            had to go through. 

            Several lawsuits seeking precisely these have been filed
            against the Japanese government, but so far none have
            brought satisfactory results. 

            According to Matsui, several court proceedings have been
            held in the past "to judge Japan's acts in Asia" but none of
            them -- not even the most famous Tokyo Tribunal that held
            more than 400 hearings -- really focused on the violence
that
            had been done on the women. 

            In contrast, the tribunal will not only address the issue of
the
            comfort women, but also many instances of the violence
            women have had to go through in other armed conflicts
            across postwar Asia. 

            Among these, say women's groups, are the rape some
            200,000 women during the war for independence in
            Bangladesh in the 1970s and rape used as a means of
            torture in the hands of the military government during the
            internal conflict in Burma in the 1980s. 

            Activists also hope the tribunal will tackle the rape and
            sexual enslavement of women in East Timor under
            Indonesian colonial rule and rape committed by the security
            troops during the India-Kashmir war conflict in 1990s. 

            Australian legal consultant Ustina Dolgopol, who
            co-authored the U.N. report "Comfort Women: The
            Unfinished Ordeal," says the many legal disadvantages
            faced by women are rooted in discrimination and are
            inherent in the societal structure. 

            "The tribunal aims to change this attitude," she says. "By
            holding the tribunal, the Japanese people can say we do
            value women within Japan and elsewhere in the region,
            believe in the equality of women and want new laws based
            on the perspective of women's rights." 

            Women's groups are now collecting evidence across Asia for
            presentation at the tribunal -- an awesome task, considering
            much of crucial evidence in many of the cases have either
            been destroyed or are still being hidden. Activists say this
is
            especially true of the "comfort women" cases. 

            Lawyers and researchers working with Matsui say Asian
            comfort women will testify for the first time against
ex-military
            police, top ex military men who were involved in the system. 

            Says Taiwanese lawyer Wang Ching Feng: "It is a civil case
            and will be a landmark not only the comfort women but also
            in the now increasing consciousness of people's power that
            hopes to change the world for the better." 

            Lawyer Apong Herlina, who is working with Indonesian
            comfort women, expresses firm support for the tribunal.
            "Former comfort women in Indonesia have kept their
            suffering silent for more than five decades," she says.
"There
            is a lot of expectation for the tribunal because it brings
them
            justice and restores their dignity." 

            Comments Apong: "The tribunal is important because it sets
            a precedent for achieving justice even today when ethnic
            Chinese women are struggling regain their dignity after
being
            raped by Indonesian soldiers." 

            Meanwhile, Chinese historian Chen Lifei of the Huadong
            Educational College Press says Chinese scholars have
            started to collect evidence after years of suppression of
            pertinent data. 

            Their research so far indicates that there were at least 77
            comfort stations in Shanghai and that some 200,000
            Chinese women were "conscripted" into the service. 

            Lawyer Wang, for her part, says there are currently 45
            women in Taiwan who have revealed their stories as comfort
            women. Some researchers though say at least 1,200 women
            from the island were forced to become sex slaves of the
            Japanese soldiers between 1938 and 1945.