Are Comfort Women Like Cafeteria Workers?

That at least seems to be the view of one Japanese law-maker. Recent statements by Japanese Prime Minister Abe have sought to distance Japan from a 1993 statement accepting government responsibility for the sexual enslavement of 200,000 Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipino and other women. These “comfort women” were forced to “service” Japanese military forces during World War II; they were frequently enslaved as young teenagers and forced to engage in sex acts dozens of times a day for years on end. Now, a group of Japanese lawmakers want us to think of the brothels set up during World War II as comparable to “college cafeterias run by private companies, who recruit their own staff, procure foodstuffs and set prices.” They argue the brothels just cropped up since there was a “demand,” while Prime Minister Abe says there’s “no evidence to prove there was coercion” of the women by Japan.

I’d always taken the 1993 Japanese admission of responsibility at face value, and am troubled by these efforts to walk away from it. Indeed, even if it turns out that Japan only set up the facilities and didn’t actually coerce the comfort women, does that free them from responsibility? Wouldn’t they have to show they did not directly or indirectly endorse the enslavement? I’m hard pressed to see how they escape complicity in these horrible crimes (besides, even if it’s an apt analogy, does anyone doubt a college would get sued if its cafeteria–private contractor or no—used forced labor to feed students from its facilities?).

What I find so troubling about these statements is the timing. Aside from the 1993 statement, the comfort women’s efforts to obtain an apology, let alone some official reparations, have met roadblock after roadblock. They lost in Japanese courts, and have failed in other courts, including here in the United States (full disclosure, I was co-counsel to the comfort women in their failed cert. petition to the U.S. Supreme Court as part of their effort to bring an ATS suit). At the end of this month, the privately-funded Asian Women’s Fund mandate runs out (since it was initiated by the Japanese Government, many comfort women have rejected its assistance in any case, insisting that Japan needs to make a fuller apology than that offered in 1993) In the meantime, the comfort women are dying off as old age takes its toll.

Some members of the U.S. House of Representatives are pushing a resolution, calling on Japan to apologize. But, is that all that the U.S. should do here? Maybe. After all, the horrors were perpetrated mostly outside the United States and involved no U.S. nationals. There are also interesting questions of whether Japan’s peace treaties included waivers of the comfort women’s claims.

Still, I wonder, where’s Stu Eizenstat? After all, the U.S. went to bat for those subject to forced labor by Nazi Germany even though it occurred outside the United States and didn’t generally involve U.S. nationals at the time. Moreover, there were also claims in those cases that Germany’s peace treaties precluded suit. Nevertheless, the U.S. went ahead and negotiated deals with both Germany and Austria to provide former forced laborers with some relief. Why has there been no similar effort for the comfort women? Why was it OK for the U.S. to press Austria and Germany on a workable compensation system, but in the Japanese instance the State Department says “this is something that must be dealt with between Japan and the countries that were affected”? I’ve admittedly got a bias on this one, but I’d be interested to hear from our readers if I’m missing something in what otherwise looks like a remarkably inconsistent U.S. foreign policy.