SEOUL, Nov 23 (Reuters) - A South Korean appellate court on Thursday ordered Japan to compensate a group of 16 women who were forced to work in Japanese wartime brothels, overturning a lower court ruling that dismissed the case and prompting a stern protest from Tokyo.
It was systematic rape, not “work”
The 16 victims filed the suit in 2016, seeking 200 million won ($155,000) each in compensation.
Wait, so this long simmering international dispute can be settled for just $2.48 million? Sheesh, just pay it.
The thing is, this doesn’t end by paying that amount. If you have a historical dispute of this complexity, no amount of payment is enough to stop the court cases and national sentiment.
I don’t think it’s the money, it’s the apology. It’s a real “sex slaves learned skills, some of which were to their benefit” Florida education system vibe.
That’s true, but if you get enough people involved, you can’t exclude those who are greedy. You’ll learn it in your life if you haven’t yet.
That would mean admitting Koreans are people too.
I think the more commonly used vocabulary refers to these woman as “sex slaves”.
Be careful,.you might get an even sterner response from Tokyo. they seem rather cranky since their comfort women are gone…
This kind of moralizing pedantry doesn’t add to the conversation, it takes away from it. “South Korea orders Japan to compensate sex slaves” is a genuinely worse article title than the given one, and contains far less information than referring to them as “comfort women.”
Yes, these people were sex slaves. The reason the term “comfort women” is helpful is because these are very specific sex slaves from a specific time, a specific place, and under specific circumstances. South Korea doesn’t want Japan to compensate sex slaves, South Korea wants Japan to compensate these sex slaves.
AFAIU Japan uses this term for a different reason. The government (at least domestically) does not recognize these people as slaves. When they reported on their investigation on whether the sex labor was forced, they purposefully used a language that can be taken both ways. I don’t know if Abe’s cabinet changed the stance, but the word comfort women is still in use because Tokyo can refer to them without classifying them slaves.
If you have a source for that alternative fact you argue, you are welcome to share it here.
Here in Japan, the term comfort women is used for the exact same reason it is used in English and around the world: it clearly and unequivocally describes the people being it is used to describe.
It’s not a weasel word used to avoid talking about the truth. It’s just the word that people use to talk about a specific group of victims. It’s a useful term that quickly gets us to the core issue, rather than starting at an extremely vague term and requiring clarifying language every time we talk about it. It’s just basic communication.
I’m a Japanese. Can you point me to your source now?
What source are you looking for? That comfort women refers to women forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during the first half of the 20th century? That’s just the definition of the word. I’m not sure what you’re asking for.
“comfort women”… are very specific sex slaves
That Japanese people recognize them as sex slaves. The government, media and commoners.
This means that I want a FORMAL source from the government. And news articles explicitly stating this. And some scholarly articles that analyze the perception among the commoners.
No god-damn Wikipedia.
If I don’t reply the next time, regard it a failure on your side.
Jesus Christ what a level of pedantry is this… I’m not engaging with this kind of bullshit, so go ahead and regard it as “a failure on my side.”
Fucking trolls wasting everyone’s time and poisoning every discussion…
Kishida has been pm since 2021, sure you’re Japanese?
I raised Abe’s name because Abe’s conservative voter base who demanded such a change.
Get rid of that “this person is not Japanese” attitude. It only humiliates you. Are you a proud nationalist or something?
If someone references the last well known leader to ask about a country, that’s a giant red flag that they’re lying about being from the country. Same for saying “as far as I understand” to describe the situation in that country. I’m not at all humiliated by not automatically believing someone I don’t know online behaving suspiciously, nor does it imply I’m a nationalist.
Woman selling or giving themselves for comfort or sex isn’t an issue.
Being enslaved to do so is.
Yeah, fuck no, not calling things what they are called is a very long standing way of obfuscating the severity of a wrong.
I literally explained how using your term actually obfuscates the facts more than using the term comfort women. Also, the article describes what the term means, so the claim that obfuscation is going on is really bizarre.