Ackerman Issues Statement on Protecting the Human Rights of Comfort Women

Press Release

U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Queens/L.I.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment today issued the following statement on the subcommittee's hearing "Protecting the Human Rights of Comfort Women." The hearing was called to discuss the issue of comfort women as well as to discuss a resolution which expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan should formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Force's coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as "comfort women", during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II.

I want to thank and commend the Chairman, Mr. Faleomavaega for holding today's hearing. I also want to commend our colleague Mr. Honda for introducing his resolution and for carrying on the work of our former colleague Lane Evans to bring attention to the issue of comfort women and their families.

Mr. Chairman, every August our nation and other nations across the globe pause to remember the end of the most horrific conflict of the 20th Century. Yet for a small and dwindling number of women, that conflict never ended. During World War II, the Japanese Imperial Army forced as many as 200,000 women across Asia into sexual slavery. The vast majority of these women were from Korea but all of the women were subjected to unspeakable crimes for years at a time at the hands of Japanese soldiers. The fact that "comfort women" existed and the fact they were abused as a deliberate policy of the Imperial Japanese Army are not in dispute. These facts have been documented by war crimes tribunals, the United Nations and even the government of Japan has acknowledged the abusive treatment of "comfort women." The Japanese government and many Japanese citizens have worked hard to establish the Asian Women's Fund to extend "atonement" from the Japanese people to the comfort women, but I don't think compensation is the total issue.

The issue is that while successive Japanese Prime Ministers have written personal letters of apology to the surviving comfort women, no Prime Minister has made a public apology on behalf of the Japanese government. Beyond that, it seems the gestures that have been made don't strike the intended recipients as genuine. There are two issues here that make today's hearing important and Mr. Honda's resolution necessary. The first is that all of the comfort women deserve an apology and acceptance of responsibility that they perceive as genuine. The second is that calling attention to such atrocities reminds us in the Congress as well as the rest of international community, that we must continue the work of preventing them from ever occurring again.

Mr. Chairman, I think all of us wish a clear and unequivocal public apology had been issued and accepted long ago and that the pain and suffering endured by these women had been appropriately acknowledged and responsibility taken by the Japanese government, but until it is, I think it is incumbent on us to continue to speak out.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I look forward to hearing today's witnesses.

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