The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal On Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery: A Historical Landmark in Ending Impunity

By: Indai Sajor

History:

It was in 1991 when the first Korean comfort woman Kim Hak Sun came out to tell her story publicly. It was a beginning of a long story to be told, by many other women in Asia and Pacific countries who were all victims of military sexual slavery and other forms of rape and sexual violence during the second world war. Stories that would be told in whispers, of repeated pain and memories, of lost childhood, parents and womanhood. Stories that would forever ring in our hearts, because we could never understand the barbarity and horrendous suffering inflicted on the women.

I was in Korea in December of 1991 attending a conference on sex trafficking, when Korean women’s rights activists told us the story of Kim Hak Sun. They encourage us to look for women who were raped by Japanese soldiers during the war in our countries. Early 1992, my friends and I decided to do just that, we went over the radio and talked about women who were raped during the war, if they are willing to tell us their stories we will protect their identity. In the Philippines Lola Rosa Henson, was the first Filipina to come out and tell us her story. We became very close friends, she died in 1998.

We started by documenting the testimonies of the women who came to us. To complete each documentation would at least take 3 to six months. In many occasions the women would break down in tears, sometimes recalling the entire trauma, over again, brought memories of lost love ones during the war. We checked the garrisons or comfort stations that they were brought to, we would travel to small isolated villages and walk in dirt roads in order to reach the women. Sometimes, these old women would come to us, wondering why only now, as many of their friends who suffered the same fate already died, and they all attributed the ill health of the women due to the sexual slavery or violence they suffered during the war.

By the end of 1992, former comfort women from North and South of Korea, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Netherlands have come out openly to reveal their stories. By December of 1992, we organized the first International Public hearing on the comfort women issue in Tokyo, the survivors from these countries spoke in an international audience for the first time. It was a historic event for it brought the comfort women from seven countries together to share their stories and sufferings. They hug and cried together and we cried with them.

Kim Yong Suk : “ I was only twelve (12). I didn’t know what that meant…I as frightened, but he was literally forcing me on the ground and he cut me open with his sword. Then I was bleeding and then he completely took off his pants and he raped me. He raped me to the point that I was bleeding and I was crying…There was another soldier, Kanemura, he came in and called me names for being a Korean woman. He stripped me naked and he also cut me with his sword and he hurt my breast area. If you see my body, I am full of scars.”

Kim Yong Suk remained a comfort woman until the war ended.

Tomasa Salinog: At the age of 13, Japanese soldiers forcibly took her away from her home after beheading her protesting father in front of her. Knowing she was a child, they nonetheless took her to a large house nearby, confined her in a room, and beat and raped her, even though she had not even had her first menstrual period yet.

Maxima Regala: At the age 15, Maxima and her mother were forcibly taken by the Japanese soldiers from the streets of their town and brought to a nearby garrison house. There they were locked in a room and separated every night, whereby each of them was repeatedly raped.

Pak Yong Sim: NK “ I had to service 30 to 40 soldiers everyday. One day I was really in pain, and when I didn’t respond to the demands of one officer, that bastard beat me with his fists, kicked me with his boots, took a long knife and held it up against my throat and cut me. The blood poured out and soaked my whole body, but that bastard officer went on to satisfy his lust.”

Pak Yong Sim was taken at the age of 17, from a village in North Korea and brought to Pyong Yang. Then she was transported to Nanjing in China, then to Shanghai. She traveled with the troops all the way to Singapore and then to Burma where she stayed in a comfort station in the mountains of Burma for two years. She was forced to have an abortion and she was never thereafter able to have children. She was released from the prisoner of war camp in 1946 and finally returned home. She served seven years as a comfort woman.

We worked very hard with the survivors, through counseling , advocacy, steps towards political empowerment. But it is a slow process of healing for the elderly women, as they lived under that long, traditional prejudices and deep inside they still have that prejudice. Even after they have come out, they were not like the rest of the women. The victims of sexual slavery system had much shame about their experiences, as they suffered so much, they either remained single, or married in some other unconventional fashion. They were too psychologically and physically scarred to go on to live a normal life.

After more than five decades of silence, the comfort women came forward at great personal sacrifice to demand recognition and justice. In many cases it was the first time that their husbands, and children heard about it. Some of the husbands even beat them up and some of the women’s children would deny them. Many of the women lived alone in isolations surviving in poverty. But their courage to tell the stories that they have tried to forget, unknowingly, changed the profile of the international women’s movement understanding of sexual slavery and violence against women in war.

Their testimonies indict not only Japan’s wartime conduct but also its failure to accept war time responsibility against many victims of the war. For the first time in history, mighty Japan is being challenged by the women survivors, for its crime against humanity during the second world war. Never before an issue that started on a local level would put the government of Japan in a defensive position in the diplomatic community, for its war responsibility. The former comfort women and its women’s rights activists supporters did not imagine that they started a movement, so relentless against a powerful country, for recognition of sexual slavery and sexual violence as crimes against humanity.

The supporters of the comfort women started to bring the issues to their national governments, demanding that they take up the issue of the comfort women with the government of Japan. We advanced the issue internationally by bringing it to the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, asking UN Rapporteur on Violence Against Women Rhadhika Coomaraswamy to do a fact finding mission in 1994 to victimized countries in Asia to interview the former comfort women and make the necessary report for their demands for compensation and reparation. By 1996, we lobbied for a new Rapporteur on Systematic Rape, Sexual Slavery, and Slavery Like practices during armed conflict at the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. She duly acknowledges that it was the activism of the comfort women supporters which was the “significant impetus” for the UN’s commissioning of her 1998 report, on slavery like practices during the war.

By 1993 we also brought the comfort women to the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, demanding in the language of the Platform for Action that all crimes committed in war be addressed. By 1993, I spearheaded the filing of the court case at the Tokyo District Court the case of the Filipina comfort women. We have 46 Filipina plaintiff, this was the beginning of a long struggle for recognition on the right to compensation, restitution and reparation in Japan.

The court case was principally to bring the issue of the comfort women to the people of Japan. It was a forum for education, solidarity, friendship, peace and reconciliation. We would bring the comfort women to Japan, and meet with the Japanese people, share their stories and personally link their lives together. It was a platform to let the people of Japan know of what happened during the war, why the comfort women suffered so much, what was done to them, why military hierarchy despise women, why inflicting violence against women is institutionalized within the culture and strategy of the military in war situations.

In the course of this struggle we have learned so many things, collectively and individually, from documenting the violations, filing court cases at the Tokyo District Court, bringing it to the international forum and the United Nations, to the government of Japan, and more importantly understanding the nature and characteristics of the violence inflicted among the women.

The Demands:

1. that the enslavement of the comfort women was a systematic, orchestrated policy, emanating from the highest level of the Japanese state

2. that this policy violated international law and humanitarian law and women’s human rights and therefore constitutes a crime against humanity for which Japan is responsible.

3. that the coercion inherent in the system took many forms and must be understood in the context of gender, ethnic, colonial and class oppression.

4. that Japan’s crimes against the comfort women did not end with the war and the dissolution of the comfort station system, but continue today in the form of Japanese denials and evasion of responsibility.

5. that Japanese responsibility does not rest only with the government or military but also extends to Japanese citizens who condoned imperialism and the sexual exploitation of women.

6. that an official apology from the Prime Minister of Japan be given individually to each comfort women

7. that the stories of the comfort women be written in the history text books of Japan.

8. that the government of Japan acknowledge its war time responsibility through reparations and compensation to the comfort women.

The Comfort Stations:

1. were regarded by the military elite as necessary to the war effort

2. were in fact an attempt on the part of the military high command to prevent open rapes committed by the Japanese soldiers in occupied territories and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among the troops.

3. the comfort stations system institutionalized sexual violence against comfort women in an attempt to curb unauthorized sexual violence.

History books:

This privileging of written documents works to exclude from history and discussions of history the voices of the kind of people comfort women represent – the female, the impoverished, the colonized, the illiterate, and the racially and ethnically oppressed. These people have left few written records of their experiences and therefore are denied a place in history and discussions of it by positivist gatekeepers. These “women without history” appear, then, only as they are represented in documents written by those in positions of power and only these documents satisfy the gatekeepers criteria for historical authenticity.

It had only been through their testimonies that survivors have been able to challenge this portrayal.

Comfort women are mentioned in Japanese documents as just one more type of war materiel, whose supply and transport had to be attended to by military accounting officers. But there is almost a denial of the existence of the comfort women until war archives document did categorically state that the Imperial Army was directly involved in the setting up of the comfort stations, recruited, abducted, coerced and abused the women.

Today we have filed 8 court cases in Japan, mostly at the Tokyo District Court, other cases are in the High Court and few are in the Supreme Court in Japan. We all lost the cases. But we brought all the cases to the high court and the Supreme court of Japan. Not that we expect to win the cases in these courts, after all they are the courts of the perpetrators, but more so to remind Japan, its unsettled war responsibility to the women.

It was also the failure to exact justice from the Japanese courts that pushed us to think of other alternative solutions, that would pin down Japan

The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal:

a. the organizers vision in executing the Women’s International War Crimes tribunal objectives was dramatic. It was establish to redress the crimes committed against the former comfort women but also to dispel the historic tendency to trivialize crimes against women, particularly sexual crimes.

b. there are five distinguished characteristics why the Women’s Tribunal is different from earlier People’s Tribunals. First, it was held in Japan, the country which the indictments were brought; second, it was a women’s tribunal; third, it was established by grassroots organizers from within the victimized countries rather than by distinguished persons from outside; fourth, it focused on the crimes of sexual slavery and violence, that have been routinely discounted in war crimes tribunals, peace settlements and therefore erased from official records; fifth, it accused both individuals and state under the same court in violations of international law, humanitarian law and human rights law.

1. the tribunal took four years to organize and mobilized hundreds of activists from all over the world. Historians, academicians, human rights lawyers, women’s rights activists, prosecutors, judges, legal advisers, experts, ….

2. the Women’s International War Crimes tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery sat in Tokyo from December 8-10, 2000 and took the testimony of the survivors, experts and perpetrators. On December 12, 2000 the Tribunal issued its Preliminary findings. Around 65 comfort women were present at the proceedings of the Tribunal.

3. the Tribunal was established as a result of the failure of states to discharge their responsibility to ensure justice. Initial responsibility for this failure lies with the world war II allied states which did not prosecute Japanese officials for these crimes before the International Criminal tribunal for the Far East in the Trial held in Tokyo from April 1946-November 1948, despite the fact that they possessed evidence of the sexual slavery in the comfort stations operated by the Japanese Imperial Army.

4. nonetheless, primary responsibility lies and remains with the state of Japan for its continuing failure over the last 56 years to prosecute, to officially and fully apologize and to provide reparations and other meaningful remedies for the crimes.

5. the judges emphasize that the Japanese people are not on trial in this forum. Individual accountability for violations of international humanitarian law does not include the ascription of collective guilt. The tribunal has no intention of deviating from this important principle.

6. the Tribunal was established out of the conviction that the failure to fully redress the crimes committed against the former comfort women must not be allowed to silence their voices. This is a Peoples’ Tribunal, a tribunal conceived and established by the voices of global society. The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, like other Peoples’ Tribunals, is premised on the understanding that “law is an instrument of civil society” that does not belong exclusively to governments whether acting alone or in conjunction with the states.

7. while a Peoples’ Tribunal cannot sentence or order reparations, it can make recommendations backed by the weight of its legal findings and its moral force. It is hoped the government of Japan will come to realize that its greatest shame lies not in uncovering the truth about these crimes, but in its failure to accept full legal and moral responsibility for the crimes.

8. the Tribunal also served as a means of documenting history, by preserving both testimony and proceedings. The importance of this can be seen from the deliberate amnesia over World War II in Japan itself, especially over the policy of military sexual slavery. The Tribunals judgment has become a historical resource and guide for future official tribunals on gendered based crimes.

9. it must be noted that the dramatic breaking of nearly half a century of silence by the former comfort women/ survivors of military sexual slavery, directly affected the International Criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. These tribunals integrated sex crimes underscored by sexual slavery, mass rapes, sexual violence etc. attending to the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity in armed conflicts in these two countries.

10. where there has previously only silence and evasion, this tribunal provides a form of public acknowledgement to the survivors that serious crimes have been committed against them. Such acknowledgement has provided healing and closure to the women despite their advance age.

The Judgment:

As the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal for the Trial of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery formally docketed Case No. PT-2000-1-T on the case of The Prosecutors and the Peoples of the Asian Pacific versus Hirohito Emperor Showa et al., it handed down its Judgment in the Hague on December 4, 2001.

The Judgment is the legacy of the comfort women to the development of gender in international law and humanitarian law in addressing sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence done to women during the war. But the judgment is more than that, it gave justice to the former ‘comfort women ‘.

When the judgment was handed down in the Hague, the judges gave each comfort woman a copy of the judgment, many of them received them with tears, others wave the judgment to the people in the audience, others held it close to their hearts. One of the Korean comfort women said, “One our sisters’ souls who died ahead of us can now truly rest. “ Lola Simang from the Philippines said “ Now we can really, really die in peace.”

The Tokyo Tribunal Judges found that Counts 1 and 2 of the Common Indictment on Rape and Sexual Slavery in the “Comfort System” as Crimes Against Humanity . The Judgment states, “ There is abundant evidence, most notably from victim-survivor testimony, that the Japanese government and military were involved in all aspects of the sexual slavery system. In addition, the evidence provided by experts confirms that Japanese officials at the highest levels participated knowingly in the system of sexual slavery.”1

On the Positions Held by the Accused, the Judges of the Tokyo Tribunal found the following: “During the Second World War, the Emperor was the highest authority in Japan, a position carrying the ultimate power and influence; a Governor-General was charged with administrative functions and enforcement of laws over their appointed country, in the annexed territories of Korea and Taiwan and reported directly to the Emperor; a Commander was the head of the armed forces within his territory, and those holding the highest area positions reported to the Emperor; a Chief of Staff was the most senior administrator to the Commander of a territory who reported to and acted on behalf of the Commander; and the Minister of War was the government cabinet post responsible for all the armed forces.”

“ The Judges note that each of the accused held either the highest or one of the highest level positions concerned with the war effort within the Japanese government or military from at least 1937 to 1945, during which time the “comfort station” system was continually expanded and maintained under the authority and for use of the Japanese military and this system was considered a critical component to the success of Japan’s war effort. With the sole exception of MATSUI, all of the accused held their positions of authority or influence for at least four years, some for considerably longer, and all held their positions during the time that rape and sexual slavery was institutionalized in the “comfort women” system. “2

“Barring a consideration that exceptional circumstances exists, the above findings are more than sufficient to establish the guilt of the accused under Articles 3(2) and 3(1) of this Tribunal’s Charter for having knowingly participated in the “comfort system” despite being aware that criminal activity was endemic throughout the system and for failing to prevent crimes committed by subordinates”.3

The Preservation of Memory:

The Judges of the Tokyo Tribunal finds….” That the efforst of the government of Japan to educate the people of Japan and future generations are sorely lacking in regard to the formal education through textbooks, official memorials, and commemorative days devoted to examining the history and engendering respect for the victimized women. Jose Zalaquett, a member of the Chilean Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, noted that if the “ghosts of the past [are] not exorcised to the fullest extent possible, [they] will continue to haunt the nation. This is true in Latin America and it is true in Asia and elsewhere”.4

The Gender Training, Empowerment and Equality:

The Tokyo Judgments states: “ It is critical that the sexual enslavement of the “comfort women and girls” not be treated as an anomaly. Rather, the underlying ideology and political, economic and social structures which combine to validate women’s inequality and subordination and, thereby, immunize violence against women and girls in the public and private arenas and must be addressed at all levels of society. Efforts must be made to expose the attitudes and conditions contributing to the devaluation of women and to reverse such attitudes through broad education, training and support to women and girls to enable them to overcome the legacy of gender inequality. “5

The Restitution and Compensation:

The Judges said, “ It is incumbent on the government of Japan to take vigorous measures, in consultation with the survivors, to restore the honour and social status of the survivors. They must be restored in not only their own eyes, but also the eyes of the society. Additionally, restitution of material losses, such as repatriation of survivors who wish to be, return of any property taken, or return of remains of the deceased, would also provide a measure of remedy.” 6

“ To be in compliance with international law, compensation must come from the source of the wrongdoer, the government of Japan and any other responsible party. The compensation must be adequate to the material harm, lost opportunities and emotional suffering of the victims, their families and close associates for the crimes committed and the ensuing harms resulting from the denial of truth and timely remedial measures. The Tribunal considers that the Asian Women’s Fund, vehemently rejected by many of the survivors, is neither appropriate nor adequate. Determination of the proper amount of compensation should be made in consultation with survivors, the families of those who are deceased and appropriate advocates and experts, and may draw upon international practice for similar or related atrocities”.7

The Recommendations:

The Tribunal Judgment made the following recommendations. It holds that in order to fulfill its responsibility, the government of Japan must provide each of the following remedial measures:

1. Acknowledge fully its responsibility and liability for the establishment of the comfort system and that this system was in violations of international law;

2. Issue a full and frank apology, taking legal responsibility and giving guarantees of non-repetition. 3. Compensate the victims and survivors and those entitled to recover as a result of the violations declared herein through the government and in amounts adequate to redress the harm and deter its future occurrence. 4. Establish a mechanism for the thorough investigation into the system of military sexual slavery and allow for public access and historical preservation of materials. 5. Consider, in consultation with the survivors, the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that will create an historical record of the gender based crimes committed during the war, transition, occupation and colonization. 6. Recognize and honour the victims and survivors through the creation of memorials, museums and libraries dedicated to their memory and the promise of “never again”. 7. Take all steps necessary to ensure that the government of Japan provides full reparation to the survivors and other victims and those entitled to recover on account of the violations committed against them. 8. Seek an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice as to the illegality and continuing liability of the government of Japan in regards to the former “comfort women”. 8

The Conclusion:

The Tokyo Tribunal judges made the following conclusions: “ Repeatedly in history, states have ignored crimes of sexual and gender violence committed against women in armed conflict violence. This failure is particularly reprehensible where justice is provided for other offenses. The failure of the Allies to prosecute Japan’s military sexual slavery system denied the victimized women equal access to the law and perpetuated the view that their suffering did not merit equal disapprobation or that they were willing participants. This exclusion from justice in the immediate aftermath of the war played an unpardonable role in silencing and shaming the survivors and impeding their healing.”9

“ It is our hope that the moral force of this Women’s International Tribunal and this Judgement will engage states as well as peoples of the world to bring Japan to recognize its responsibility to repair these atrocities, to right these wrongs, and to enable the future generations to go forward on the basis of respect for women’s equality and dignity.”9

“The courage of the survivors, their yearning for justice and their solidarity has inspired a worldwide movement for women’s human rights and against gender violence to ensure that such crimes never again be overlooked nor allowed to occur. That crimes against women have begun to be prosecuted in the recently established international criminal tribunals and have been codified in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is one of the fruits of their efforts and has laid the foundation for ending impunity for violence against women. “10

The Tokyo Tribunal Judgment is a great work of legal document, but more importantly because it gave a sense of justice to the “comfort women” who survived the ordeal. Many of them will not ever know that finally the crimes committed against them are being acknowledge by the international community. The Judgment is a living document that will be the light to guide the struggle of the former comfort women on this most crucial and important steps of their legacy – ending the cycle of impunity and making states and non states actors responsible for their crimes during war time.

[ 1-10] Judgement , The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal for the Trial of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery. Case No. PT-2000-1-T Corrected 31 January 2002

Transcript of Oral Judgement delivered on 4 December 2001 by the Judges of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery. Hague, Netherlands

The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal 2000 for the Trial of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery, Summary of Findings and Preliminary Judgement, 12 December 2000

The Women of Mapanique: Untold Crimes of War, by Nena Gajudo, Gina Alunan and Susan Macabuag. Edited by Indai Sajor ISBN 971-91991-1-3 Copyright@ 2000

Comfort Women , Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II by Yoshimi Yoshiaki. ISBN – 0-231-12032-X Copyright@1995 by Yoshimi Yoshiaki

Common Grounds, Violence Against Women in War and Armed Conflict Situations, Edited by Indai Lourdes Sajor ISBN 971-91991-0-5 Copyright@1998 Asian Centre for Women’s Human Rights (ASCENT) and the individual authors.

The Historical Significance of Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal 2000: Overcoming the Culture of Impunity for Wartime Sexual Violence by Yayori Matsui

Comfort Women – Shifting Shame and Stigma from Victims to Victimizers by Kelly Dawn Askin International Criminal Law review 1: 5-32,2001 @Kluwer Law International

A Seven Year Old Protest Continues to Draw Support by Martha Vickery Korean Quarterly, 1999 Printed in USA

The International Human Rights Community Weighs In by Martha Vickery Korean Quarterly 1999 Printed in USA

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Indai Lourdes Sajor, is a Co-Convener of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery together with Yayori Matsui and Yun Chung Ok. She had been working with the movement for justice for the former comfort women for the past decade. She is currently a Rockefeller Humanities Fellow for Human Security.

This paper is prepared for the Asia Pacific War Conference in Vancouver Canada