Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-13-Speech-4-205"
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"en.20071213.29.4-205"2
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"Madam President, I am very grateful to the previous speaker for having drawn attention to the fact that no religion on this earth is immune to massive human rights violations against women, but this is more to do with dictatorship and authoritarian systems than with a specific religion.
Hundreds of thousands of women before and during the Second World War were forced into prostitution by the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces. Historians’ estimates assume that around 200 000 of these ‘comfort women’ from Korea, China, Taiwan and the Philippines were handed over to Japanese soldiers as sex slaves. The ‘comfort women’ system is one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century and led to gang rapes on a massive scale and to forced abortions.
After the end of the war, many women were murdered by the armed forces or prevented from returning home. Many of the survivors remained silent out of shame about their past and were stigmatised and relegated to the fringes of society. The issue of forced prostitution was not broached at the war crime trials and there was no talk of reparation.
Not until the end of the 1980s did the fate of the comfort women come to light again. The reason for this was not an automatic change in awareness, but the rapidly growing women’s movement in South Korea. Little by little, women who had been forced into prostitution spoke out publicly. In 1992 weekly demonstrations began in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul with the words: the Japanese Government should be ashamed, not us.
In 1997 the Japanese Government was asked for the first time to take legal and moral responsibility internationally for the most severe human rights violations committed against women. In her report the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women demanded financial compensation for the victims and court sentences for the perpetrators. The reaction of the Japanese Government at the time was an out and out rejection of these demands.
It has already been said several times today that the truth must be taken into account. We are therefore asking the Japanese Government publicly to reject any assertions that deny or question the subjugation and enslavement of the comfort women and we are likewise demanding that they accept moral and legal responsibility for the enslavement of 200 000 people. We are calling on the Japanese Government to implement mechanisms to provide reparations to all surviving victims and their families as quickly as possible.
Many victims of the comfort women system have passed away or are at least 80 years old, which means speed is of the essence. We are also calling on our colleagues in the Japanese National Assembly, however, to make their contribution in parliament to help get these mechanisms accepted."@en1
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