Top UN human rights official denounces Japan on comfort women issue

Navi Pillay urges Japan to come up with a “comprehensive, impartial and lasting resolution”

By Son Won-je and Yi Yong-in, staff reporters

The top human rights official at the United Nations delivered a scathing criticism of Tokyo’s response to the issue of so-called “comfort women” drafted into sexual slavery to the military under the Japanese imperial government.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay went on to urge Japan to produce a “comprehensive, impartial and lasting resolution” to the issue.

Pillay’s remarks were the harshest denouncement yet from a UN human rights chief toward Japan’s behavior on the issue, which she referred to explicitly as “wartime sexual slavery.”

And with Pillay arguing that “human rights violations against [comfort women survivors] continue to occur as long as their rights to justice and reparation are not realized,” observers are now saying Tokyo has less room to continue with stalling tactics and denials of past events.

In her statement on Aug. 6, Pillay said Japan had “failed to pursue a comprehensive, impartial and lasting resolution of the issue of wartime sexual slavery,” according to a press release from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

“[T]he human rights of the victims, known as ‘comfort women’, continue to be violated decades after the end of the Second World War,” the release continued.

In her statement, Pillay expressed her personal dismay at Tokyo’s response to the issue.

“During my visit to Japan in 2010, I appealed to the [Japanese] Government to provide effective redress to the victims of wartime sexual slavery,” Pillay said.

“Now, as my tenure in office comes to an end, it pains me to see that these courageous women, who have been fighting for their rights, are passing away one by one, without their rights restored and without receiving the reparation to which they are entitled.”

Pillay, who is from South Africa, has served as High Commissioner since September 2008. Her six-year term is set to expire at the end of this month.

Pillay went on to say that the comfort women issue “is not an issue relegated to history.”

“It is a current issue, as human rights violations against these women continue to occur as long as their rights to justice and reparation are not realised,” she explained.

Pillay expressed dismay at the handling of the situation by Japanese officials, who she accused of denying the facts and making insulting statements rather than pursuing justice. In particular, she singled out remarks made by prominent Japanese politicians openly describing the comfort women as “not sexual slaves but wartime prostitutes,” after a June 20 report by a government investigation team that “failed to find evidence that [comfort women] were forcibly mobilized.”

“Such statements must cause tremendous agony to the women,” Pillay said, “but we have not seen any public rebuttal from the Government.”

Noting that Japan signed the Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict last year, Pillay said, “I encourage Japan to pursue a comprehensive, impartial and lasting resolution of the wartime sexual slavery issue with the same vigour,” adding that the OHCHR was prepared to offer the necessary support.

Observers saw Pillay’s remarks as the most comprehensive and forceful message the OHCHR could have sent to Tokyo. They also tie in with a more general trend of the international community becoming increasingly critical of the Shinzo Abe administration’s attempts to deny historical events, as seen with the White House’s recent decision to hold an official meeting with two comfort women survivors.

In addition to ratcheting up the pressure on Japan, the criticisms also provide Seoul with a crucial foundation for raising the comfort women issue internationally going ahead.

In a statement the same day, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson wrote, “We welcome Ms. Pillay’s description of the Japanese military comfort women issue as an ongoing human rights infringement against the victims, and her recommendation that the Japanese government devise a comprehensive and lasting solution.”

“After twenty years of various UN human rights bodies issuing recommendations, the highest-ranking human rights official in the UN has now stated an authoritative position on the Japanese military comfort women issue,” the statement continued.

“We urge the Japanese government to accept the UN’s recommendation, engage in true reflection, and adopt responsible measures.”

　

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