Japan sorry for damaging dignity of WWII 'comfort women'

Japan once again extended its apologies for the suffering inflicted by Japanese soldiers on Filipino “comfort women” during the Second World War.

Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy press secretary Kaneko Mariko said that they have long issued an apology for the atrocities committed during World War II. She also said that Japan has settled the reparations to the victims through the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty. 

“We fully recognize that the dignity and honor of those former comfort women was injured, and to that, the government of Japan has been extending, expressing apologies, and deep remorse for those actions during the war,” Kaneko said in an Unang Balita report.

“The Government of Japan’s position is that all the reparation has been settled, legally settled, under the San Francisco Peace Treaty, including the issue of comfort women,” she added.

But since the dignity and honor of the comfort women were damaged, Kaneko said that the Japanese government “has been taking many measures to recover [their] honor.” 

Last week, Senator Risa Hontiveros reiterated her call for “just and meaningful reparations” for Filipino comfort women and their families, stressing that the Philippine government is running out of time to do so.

“Labing-walo na lang ang natitirang Malaya Lolas [there are 18 remaining comfort women]. They cannot wait any longer,” said Hontiveros, who chairs the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality.

“President Marcos and the entire administration must make good on their promise to extend aid and assistance to them. Hindi dapat hayaan ng ating gobyerno na pumanaw sila nang hindi nakakamtan ang hustisya para sa kanila,” she added. 

(The government should not let them pass away without getting justice for them.) 

In March 2023, the Philippine government vowed to look into a United Nations (UN) panel report that said the Philippines failed to meet its obligations to the comfort women.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) urged the Philippines to provide the victims “full reparation, including recognition and redress, an official apology, and material and moral damages” for the continuing discrimination. —Giselle Ombay/KBK/VBL, GMA Integrated News