Subject: [cwj 144] Japan Court Nixes Sex Slave Funds
From: Corporate Watch in Japanese <cwj@corpwatch.org>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:59:27 -0800
Seq: 144

Japan Court Nixes Sex Slave Funds
The Associated Press, Thu 29 Mar 2001=20

TOKYO (AP) =97 An appeals court Thursday said the Japanese government need
not pay three Korean women compensation for forcing them into wartime
sexual slavery as no serious constitutional violations occurred.=20

The Hiroshima High Court overturned a 1998 district court ruling that
ordered the government to pay a total of $7,260 to the women who were
forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during World War II.=20

The three women and seven people forced into slave labor filed a lawsuit
with the Yamaguchi District Court in western Japan in 1992, seeking about
$3.1 million in official compensation. They also demanded the government's
official apology. One of the women has since died.=20

The plaintiffs appealed the ruling, saying the amount of compensation was
too small. The government also appealed, refusing to pay compensation.=20

The two women said they were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers in
Taiwan and the Chinese city of Shanghai.=20

In the original 1998 ruling, the Shimonoseki Branch of the Yamaguchi
District Court said the Japanese government has failed to enact laws to
accommodate the payment of compensation to sex slaves.=20

The women and their supporters hailed the ruling as a landmark decision.=20

On Thursday, however, presiding judge Toshiaki Kawanami said abducting the
women to use them as forced laborers and sex slaves was not a serious
constitutional violation.=20

Tokyo has acknowledged that its wartime army set up brothels and forced
thousands of Koreans into military  service, but it has refused to pay
direct, or official compensation to individuals.=20

Historians say as many as 200,000 women, mostly Koreans but also Filipinos,
Chinese and Dutch, were forced into sexual slavery during World War II.=20

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-------------------------------------
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