|
A Korean lawmaker on Tuesday quoted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as making derogatory remarks about the ¡°comfort women¡± pressed into service as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II. Uri Party lawmaker Yoo Ki-hong in a press release quoted Abe as telling a meeting of Japanese conservative lawmakers in April 1997 that the conscription of Korean women as comfort women was neither outrageous nor senseless. According to a book cited by Yoo, Abe said the sex trade, including the forced activity of comfort women, was ¡°normal¡± in Korean society, since there were many traditional restaurants featuring gisaeng or traditional female entertainers who were similar to Japan¡¯s geisha.
Abe also questioned the truth of the claims of former comfort women that they had been kidnapped and forced into sex slavery. ¡°If they were hunted and forced into sex slavery, their families would have known it. It¡¯s also questionable why they kept silent about the forced wartime sex slavery when Korea and Japan signed a 1965 treaty where Japan compensated for its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.¡± In other words, Abe accused victims of lying.
As a leader of a group of conservative lawmakers who wanted to change Japan¡¯s history education, Abe made the remarks in a retort to a lecture by former deputy chief Cabinet secretary Nobuo Ishihara, who took part in drawing up an apology for Japan¡¯s colonial rule and sex enslavement known as the ¡°Kono Statement.¡± It was issued by chief Cabinet secretary Yohei Kono, Ishihara's boss, in 1995.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
