Dem to bring Korean ‘comfort woman’ to Japan speech

A prominent House Democrat will bring a Korean “comfort woman” to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Wednesday speech before a joint session of Congress.

Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), who has long-accused the Japanese government of failing to own up to atrocities committed during World War II, is hoping his gesture will highlight the plight of the women who were forced into the sexual service of Japanese troops during the conflict. 

Honda, a Japanese-American and former head of the Congressional Asian Pacific-American Caucus, is also calling on Abe to make a formal apology for that history in Wednesday’s speech.

{mosads}”[H]e has an opportunity to do right by these women, and issue an unequivocal and irrefutable apology – something that carries the weight of his government,” Honda wrote Tuesday in an op-ed for CNN. 

Honda noted that Congress passed a resolution in 2007 calling on Japanese leaders “to formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery; publicly refute any claims that the sexual enslavement and trafficking of the ‘comfort women’ never occurred; and educate current and future generations about this horrible crime.” 

“We are still waiting for their government to comply,” Honda wrote. 

The conservative Abe has long-been accused of whitewashing some of Japan’s activities during the Second World War, particularly the use of “comfort women.”

Last week, Abe stirred more controversy when he sent a token gift to a Japanese war shrine — a move hailed by his nationalist base but denounced by neighboring country’s like South Korea and China, which view the ritual as a denial of past atrocities. The shrine is a memorial to the Japanese troops who died in the war, but also includes military officers and political officials later found guilty of war crimes.

Honda’s guest to Wednesday’s speech is a Korean woman named Yong Soo Lee who, as a 16 year old in 1944, was forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese, Honda said.

“Lee suffered beatings and torture, was infected with a venereal disease, was fed paltry amounts of food, faced temperatures so cold that ice formed on her body, and was never allowed outside,” Honda wrote. “Only the end of World War II brought her relief.”

Addressing students during a visit to Harvard University on Monday, Abe addressed the criticisms that have followed him on the issue, saying he stands behind the 1993 Kona Statement, in which Japan offered its “sincere apologies and remorse to all those, irrespective of place of origin, who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.”

“My heart aches when I think about the people who were victimized by human trafficking and who were subject to immeasurable pain and suffering, beyond description,” Abe told the students, according to the Harvard Gazette. “On this score my feeling is no different from my predecessor prime ministers.”

President Obama on Tuesday night is staging a rare state dinner for Abe at the White House. A number of House Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), will be on hand. Honda will not be among them.