Canada MPs demand Japan apologize to WWII 'comfort women'
OTTAWA (AFP) — Canada's parliament unanimously passed a motion Wednesday calling on Japan to sincerely apologize to foreign women forced into military brothels during World War II.
It said, Japan must "take full responsibility for the involvement of the Japanese Imperial Forces in the system of forced prostitution" and offer "a formal and sincere apology expressed in the Diet to all of those who were victims."
The motion also calls on Tokyo "to address those affected in a spirit of reconciliation" and publicly refute claims by deniers of the "sexual enslavement and trafficking of 'comfort women.'"
The US Congress and Dutch Parliament have already passed similar motions.
Earlier, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Jason Kenney said the "unthinkable evil that happened some 60 years ago" must never be repeated.
"We need to learn from the lessons of history to ensure that they are not repeated ... and we need to redouble our efforts in fighting similar kinds of violence against women, against children."
Opposition New Democrat MP Olivia Chow, who spearheaded the initiative, told AFP: "For me, this isn't crimes against 200,000 women. It's crimes against humanity and all of the world's citizens have a responsibility to speak out against it."
She lamented that "15-year-old young girls were subjected (during WWII) to torture and raped by countless men for weeks, months and years on end."
Hundreds of thousands of women from Korea, China, the Philippines, Indonesia and other countries were kidnapped and forced to work in military brothels during the Second World War.
Japan has euphemistically referred to them as "comfort women."
While the scale of the practice is still debated in Japan, it remains an irritant between Tokyo and its neighbors.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono apologized in 1993 to the victims for their "immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds."
Then-prime minister Tomiichi Murayama also apologized the following year.
But Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe reopened the wounds earlier this year by saying there was "no evidence" of the practice.
