Former ''Comfort Women'' Ask Court to Rule that Japan Has No Sovereign Immunity for Systematic Sexual Slavery During World War II

Business Wire, March 5, 2001

Business Editors, Legal Writers

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 5, 2001

Women systematically and repeatedly raped by the Japanese military during World War II filed a motion in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia today, asking the court to hold that Japan cannot claim sovereign immunity as a defense.

Attorney Michael D. Hausfeld, of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, P.L.L.C., is lead counsel for the Plaintiffs.

The Plaintiffs, most of whom were aged 10-18 years and were known during the war as "comfort women," claim that Japan explicitly waived sovereign immunity for war crimes by agreeing to the terms of the Potsdam Declaration at the end of the war. The women also claim that Japan's operation of military sex-slave brothels constituted a commercial activity such that sovereign immunity does not apply, and that Japan's violations of the most fundamental principles of human rights law constitutes an implied waiver of immunity. The motion relies in part on the recent determination of the Bosnian War Crimes Tribunal, which held that widespread and systematic rape can constitute a crime against humanity, and rejected typical defenses for wartime rape such as "boys will be boys," and "I was only following orders."

The brief filed in support of Plaintiffs' Motion contains an extensive factual history of Japan's systematic sexual slavery during World War II. Citing multiple sources, including translations of Japanese military records, the brief outlines how Japan kidnapped or coerced over 200,000 women and girls, some as young as ten years old, into sexual slavery. The brief then outlines how the women and girls were kept in often deplorable conditions and were forced to service up to seventy soldiers a day in military "comfort stations." Women and girls who resisted were beaten, tortured and sometimes murdered in front of their fellow comfort women. Of the over 200,000 women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military, only 25 to 30% are estimated to have survived the war.

Japan has never accepted legal responsibility for the crimes against humanity it perpetrated against former "comfort women." One witness quoted in the brief, Brig. Gen. Vorley Rexroad (Ret.), stated, "there's been no greater mass crime that I know of . . . that has been committed against modern women, modern-day women in the 20th century."

The brief provides extensive examples of the means by which women and girls were forced to become comfort women. For instance, one Filipina woman was abducted as follows:

"After the invasion of the Philippines in 1942, Plaintiff Tomasa Salinog was awakened in the middle of the night by Japanese soldiers breaking into her home. After the soldiers decapitated her father, Plaintiff Salinog was dragged from her house by the soldiers and taken to a nearby garrison where a number of other women were confined. Ms. Salinog, who was thirteen years old at the time, was then raped by two soldiers and beaten unconscious. She was thereafter forced to serve as a 'comfort woman' in the same garrison, where she was very often used by Japanese soldiers from the afternoon until late at night."

"Comfort women" were also beaten and tortured regularly by Japanese soldiers. The brief describes these events in lurid detail, including the following:

"One Korean 'comfort woman' who asked why women in her 'comfort station' were being forced to service up to forty men a day was ordered by a Japanese commander to be beaten with a sword while other 'comfort women' watched. Thereafter, the resister was stripped, tied at the arms and legs, and rolled over a board covered in nails 'until the nails were covered with blood and pieces of her flesh.' She was then decapitated. One Japanese officer told the onlookers that 'it's easy to kill you all, easier than killing dogs' and suggested that the flesh of the dead girl would be boiled and the survivors forced to eat it."

"We hope that this motion will force Japan to finally come to terms with its past," says Michael Hausfeld. "The crimes perpetrated by Japan against 'comfort women' have remained hidden for far too long, and many former 'comfort women' continue to suffer in silence. It is only by accepting legal and moral responsibility for its crimes against humanity that Japan can begin to close the door on this brutal chapter in its history."

According to Elizabeth H. Cronise, also of Cohen, Milstein, "Many former 'comfort women' are elderly and continue to suffer severe physical and emotional problems arising out of their sexual enslavement. If Japan continues to refuse to accept responsibility for its conduct, it is likely that the small surviving number of former 'comfort women' will die without ever receiving any form of justice for the grievous wrongs perpetrated against them."

Copies of the Motion may be found on the firm's website at www.cmht.com.