Japan's top court nixes sex slave, Korean veteran’s suit November 30, 2004 The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a damages suit against the government by Korean wartime sex slaves and former Korean soldiers forced to serve the Imperial Japanese Army during the war. The ruling was handed down in only two minutes, and plaintiffs shouted their dissatisfaction with the decision. Some even climbed over the barrier of the gallery seats and headed toward the justices' seats before being stopped by guards. The ruling puts an end to a 13-year legal battle by the 35 plaintiffs, including relatives of victims who have died, who were seeking 20 million yen each in compensation from the government for their suffering. The redress lawsuit, filed in 1991, was the first of its kind by former sex slaves, who were forced to serve at frontline brothels for Japanese military personnel. The sex slaves are euphemistically known in Japan as "comfort women." The Tokyo District Court and Tokyo High Court both rejected the plaintiffs' demands for damages, prompting them to appeal to the top court. Presiding Justice Osamu Tsuno of the Supreme Court said, "Compensation for damages caused by Japan during war is not envisioned" under the postwar Constitution. He also brushed aside the plaintiffs' claim that it runs counter to the constitutional principle of equality for Japan to deny compensation to the Korean soldiers, who lost their Japanese nationality following Japan's wartime defeat. The Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule between 1910 and 1945. In its July 2003 ruling, the high court acknowledged for the first time that the government had failed in its obligation to provide security for the Korean soldiers and women. It also ruled for the first time against the government's claim that it would not be subject to responsibility over administrative authority exercised prior to postwar enactment of the national redress law. But it rejected the compensation claims and backed the government's stance that the plaintiffs' right to claim redress expired under an agreement signed between Japan and South Korea in 1965. The former Korean soldiers were conscripted into the Japanese military in the early 1940s. The plaintiffs included relatives of those who were killed in combat and others who who died when their ship sank on the way back home following the war's end. The Korean women were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers at garrisons in China and elsewhere. Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mostly from the Korean Peninsula and other parts of Asia, were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese military personnel before and during the war. A series of similar lawsuits followed after this suit was filed in 1991 by the Association of Pacific War Victims and Bereaved Families, led by Kim Jong Dae. Comment on this story, click here. Copyright 1999-2004, AsianSexGazette.com.  All rights reserved.  No content may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission.  Please contact us via the link below for re-print and syndication policies.

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