Dutch legislator seeks clarification on denial of wartime sex slavery

Asian Political News, July 16, 2007

BRUSSELS, June 29 Kyodo

A Dutch legislator sent a letter to her Japanese counterpart on Thursday to seek clarification about an opinion advertisement -- endorsed by some Japanese lawmakers -- in a U.S. newspaper that disputes that women in Asia were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II, a parliamentary spokesperson told Kyodo News.

The letter by President Gerdi Verbeet of the Dutch House of Representatives was sent to Speaker Yohei Kono of the Japanese House of Representatives.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende also expressed displeasure about the ad and about Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's statement in March that no evidence exists to show women were coerced to work in brothels for Japanese servicemen.

Some Dutch citizens in Indonesia, a then Dutch colony that was captured by Japan during the war, were among the women forced into sexual slavery, euphemistically called ''comfort women'' in Japan.

The full-page ad, dubbed ''THE FACTS,'' appeared in the June 14 edition of The Washington Post and said, ''No historical documents has ever been found by historians or research organizations that positively demonstrates that women were forced against their will into prostitution by the Japanese army.''

The ad, presented by journalist Yoshiko Sakurai and political commentator Taro Yayama and listed as ''assenters'' 44 Japanese lawmakers -- 29 from the Liberal Democratic Party, 13 from the Democratic Party of Japan and two independents. Abe, a House of Representatives member, is not among them.

The Asian Women's Fund, a Japanese government-initiated private relief fund set up in 1995, offered money to surviving former sex slaves ''for improvement of their livelihood'' and by 2001 241.5 million yen had been disbursed to nearly 80 women, including an undisclosed number from the Netherlands.

Along with the money, copies of a letter, signed by successive prime ministers, were also sent in which the prime minister offered their apologies to the women and expressed remorse. It was widely perceived in the Netherlands that the Japanese government formally acknowledged its responsibility over the issue.

The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee overwhelmingly passed a resolution Tuesday demanding an apology from Japan over the sex slavery.