Despite a three-decade fight for the rights of comfort women, Japan continues to ignore the ageing women's plight and demands for compensation and justice. - AFP
MANILA (Xinhua): An organisation fighting for justice for Philippine wartime sexual slavery victims of the Japanese troops on Monday (Aug 14) slammed Japan's efforts to boost its military role in the Philippines while continue refusing to apologise for its wartime crimes.
"The memories of the abuses suffered by Filipinos, especially women, in World War II have not healed. Japan who has still refused to acknowledge its wartime crimes yet is now serving as the US military partner in its Indo-Pacific framework," the Lila Pilipina said in a statement.
"Lila Pilipina" means League of Filipino Grandmother in Tagalog, major language of the Philippines. According to the non-profit organization that helps these victims seek justice, more than 1,000 Filipino women were forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese aggressors when Japan occupied the Philippines from December 1941 until its defeat in August 1945.
Until the early 1990s, nearly 300 Filipino women finally took the courage to come out in the open to tell their wartime ordeal.
In 2012, the day of Aug 14 was designated the International Memorial Day for "Comfort Women" by the 11th Asian Alliance Conference for "Comfort Women."
After three decades of fighting for their rights, there are now only a few survivors, most in their 90s and sick, while Japan continues to ignore the aging women's plight and demands on compensation and justice.
Lila Pilipina slammed Japan's efforts for reaching a military agreement with the Philippines that will allow Japanese troops and war materiel to move unhampered in the country.
"It is a violation of both the Japanese and Philippine Constitutions that both renounce war as instruments of national policy," the group added.
Lila Pilipina has participated in national and global efforts to prevent and oppose militarism, armed invasion, and their attendant war crimes. The group, together with other wartime victim groups, rallied Monday before the Congress in Metro Manila, demanding the lawmakers pass a bill to declare Aug. 14 as the "National Memorial Day for Comfort Women."
The group vowed to "vigorously oppose imperialist wars of aggression, bearing in mind the sufferings that our nation and Filipino women victims of military sexual violence endured during World War II."
