Singapore:
2013 January – Singapore rejects comfort women statue to be built
Taiwanese Comfort Women
Filed: July 14, 1999
Nine women from Taiwan, who claim they were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during wartime, filed a suit on July 14, 1999 with the Tokyo District Court seeking compensation and an apology from the Japanese government for the suffering they endured. It was the first time thatTaiwanese women have filed such a lawsuit.
The nine women, headed by Huang A Tau, including other former comfort women, such as Lee-Yang Yu-chuan and Lu Man-mei, sought ¥10 million (US$84,000) each and an official apology from the national government for acts they say were carried out under the direction of the Japanese government at the time. The women claimed they were forced to work under a syndicate that was set up by the Japanese military government in wartime. Huang stated that she applied for a nurse’s job only to find herself forced into a brothel in China and transferred to similar facilities in Indonesia and Burma until the closing days of the war. She stated that after the war she returned to Taiwan, but was too ashamed to tell her parents what had happened and has lived alone ever since.
Two Taiwanese lawyers, Wang Ching-feng and Chuang Kuo-ming, and one Japanese lawyer, Kunio Aitani, represented the women. The lawyers argued that the case was different from the one brought previously by South Korean comfort women in that the 1952 Taipei-Tokyo peace agreement, under which Taipei waived any damage claims against Japan, was annulled by a 1972 joint statement between Tokyo and Beijing when Japan switched its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The lawsuit also stated that four of the nine plaintiffs were Taiwan aborigines who suffered more discrimination than the ordinary Chinese and thus deserved special compensation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan joined Chuang and Wang in demanding compensation and an apology from the Japanese government. The ministry stated that the government of the Republic of China has always supported the women’s claims against Japan, and since 1992 has commissioned private groups to investigate their situation. Their research shows that at least 766 Taiwanese women were forcefully conscripted as comfort women. The Taiwanese research group conducted oral interviews with 58 claimed cases, and confirmed that at least 48 were clearly forced to work as comfort women. The ROC government granted humanitarian aid of US $15,384 to each of the 42 comfort women who were still alive and living in Taiwan.
On October 15, 2002, the Tokyo District Court’s decision dismissed the claims, both for a public apology and compensation; no factual findings were made.
The plaintiffs appealed to the Tokyo High Court in October 2002. During the course of the appeal, two of the nine women had died. On February 9, 2004 the Tokyo High Court rejected the appeal for an official apology from the Japanese government and a total of now-¥70 million in damages. The Tokyo High Court’s rejection upheld the October 15, 2002 ruling by the Tokyo District Court. It added an explanation that it was not because there had been no legal procedure for compensation stipulated under the Imperial Japanese Constitution, but because it is a highly political decision to redress the effect of state coercion, and thus is beyond the range of decisions possibly made within the existing law. (Japanese text of the court’s decision)
The women appealed to the Supreme Court on February 19, 2004. On February 25, 2005, the Japanese Supreme Court rejected the requests of the remaining seven women. As such, this ended their legislative options in Japan.
On February 26, 2005, the support groups from Taiwan for these former comfort women decided to the bring the case to the United Nations. Their efforts continue.
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Hainan Island Comfort Women
Filed on: July 16, 2001
Eight former comfort women from Hainan Island, who come from indigenous ethnic minorities, filed a lawsuit against Japan on July 16, 2001, demanding a total of ¥24 million in compensation and an official, published apology from the Japanese government. Filed with the Tokyo District Court, the lawsuitclaimed the women were deprived of their honor by being forced to provide sex to Japanese troops from 1942 until the end of the war in 1945. The eight women were aged between 14 and 18 when Japanese forces occupied China’s Hainan Island and forcefully recruited them to its comfort women stations.
The women alleged their honor further suffered as their families and neighbors disdained them for having been prostitutes for Japan. They claimed such attitudes were a result of Tokyo’s failure to acknowledge the abuse they endured and to offer an official apology. The lawsuit stressed that some plaintiffs continue to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and complain of nightmares about their experiences as comfort women.
The lawsuit was the first in which plaintiffs sought compensation for continuing psychological trauma suffered after the war instead of asking for direct damages related to having been forced into slavery. Lawyer Hitoshi Nakano, who represented the women, stressed that the women decided to sue the Japanese government because they were still taunted by their husbands and neighbors as Japanese whores, and that they continued to suffer from psychological wounds inflicted by the Japanese military.
The Tokyo District Court, while admitting the fact that they were kidnapped and forced to work as sex slavery, ruled that their legal right to pursue the compensation had been expired.
The plaintiffs appealed to the Tokyo High Court, and the first oral testimony was held on May 15, 2007. Two of the plaintiffs had already died by this time. The Supreme Court had already decided in another case that Chinese individuals had no legal right to sue the Japanese government on April 27, 2007. However, the judges of the High Court decided to discuss whether this case falls within the Supreme Court’s decision or not. The case is still ongoing.