By Mata Press Service

Four women from the Philippines, Korea, China and Holland appeared before the Canadian parliament after a public forum in Toronto to urge MPs to pressure Japan to atone for WWII crimes
Kim Koon Ja was only 16 when she was brought to a house to “comfort” Japanese soldiers.

“On a daily basis, I was raped by Japanese soldiers, and it was common to be raped by 20 different soldiers a day, and as high as 40. If we fought or resisted the rapes, we would be punished, beaten, or stabbed by the soldiers,” said the Korean woman.

Filipina Maria Rosa Henson was kept in a camp with six other young girls for much of World War II.

“Every day, from two in the afternoon to ten in the evening, the soldiers lined-up outside my room and the rooms of the six other women there. I did not have time to wash after each assault. At the end of the day, I just closed my eyes and cried.”

Jan Ruff O’Herne, a Dutch national was 19 when she was interned in an Indonesian prison camp for three and a half years.

“A Japanese military officer told us that we were here for the sexual pleasure of the Japanese . . . then they started to drag us away, one by one. I could hear the screaming coming from the bedrooms. The tears were streaming down my face as he raped me in a most brutal way. I thought he would never stop . . . there were more Japanese waiting, and this went on all night, it was only the beginning, week after week, month after month.”

Lui Gui-ying from China was raped at the age of 9 by the Japanese army soldiers who had captured the city of Nanking.

“I was forced to have sex with these soldiers, up to 30 of them each day for one and a half years, until the day I escaped from the brothel.”

These four women were among 200,000 women and girls, mainly from Korea, China, Indonesia and the Philippines, who were kidnapped and made sex slaves in military brothels for the Japanese invading army.

This week, the four — euphemistically called Asian “comfort women” — are in Canada to tell their horror stories in the hope that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will pressure the Parliament of Japan to formally apologize to women coerced into military sexual slavery.

The four women have joined other victims to inspire a global movement that has demanded that crimes of sexual violence be redressed.

Amnesty International is urging nations across the world to put pressure on the Japanese government to ensure that survivors receive full reparation including: Restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.

The events have been organized by the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia, a non-profit organization.

The four women appeared before the Canadian parliament after a public forum in Toronto where they spoke of how they were raped and tortured.

Liu has been to Japan four times since 1995 but has so far been unable to extract a formal apology or reparations from the Japanese government.

“I will fight for justice as long as I am still breathing”, said Liu, a mother of five.

“The fight will never stop until justice is served.

“My sons and daughters will take up my cause if I cannot wait for justice to be delivered in my life.”

Liu is believed to be one of a dwindling number of comfort women still alive in China.
Su Zhiliang, the president of the China Research Center on Chinese Comfort Women, said there are only 46 comfort women still alive in China after one died earlier this year.

A Chinese belief that exposing one’s misfortunes will bring shame on a person and their families made Liu, who at 15 was abducted by Japanese troops and became a forced sex slave, reluctant to publicly reveal her past until 1994.

Researchers and historians estimate that as many as 400,000 women and girls in Asia — half of whom are Chinese — were forced to become sex slaves in between 1937 and 1945.

Japan has long shied away from making a formal apology and paying financial compensation, insisting that all government-level compensation had been settled by post-war peace treaties.

The comfort women campaign, however, has been winning international support.

The lower house of the Dutch parliament passed a motion this month urging Japan to apologize and compensate comfort women.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a similar resolution in July.
Amnesty International is now calling for the speedy passage of a motion through the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and for the committee to refer the motion immediately to the Canadian House of Commons.

“It is our hope and expectation that a resolution would be passed at an early date to allow the Canadian government to press the Japanese government to take full responsibility for the crimes committed against the ‘comfort women’ immediately,” Amnesty said in a statement.

Dr. Joseph Wong, of the Toronto ALPHA organization, which has been in the forefront of the campaign in Canada, urged Canadians to write to their MPS to push for Japan’s apology and compensation.

“We need to send a strong and positive signal to Japan that the world knows this part of history and there is no way to white wash this,” he said in a statement.

“The best way to achieve this is to urge our Canadian Parliament to pass a motion calling on Japan and the Diet to officially and unequivocally acknowledge and apologize for the horrendous crimes the Japanese Imperial Army had committed against women during WWII, and make proper and dignified compensation to the survivors of the sex slavery system.”