MANILA, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) — An group combating for justice for Philippine wartime sexual slavery victims of the Japanese troops on Monday slammed Japan’s efforts to spice up its navy function within the Philippines whereas proceed refusing to apologize for its wartime crimes.
“The memories of the abuses suffered by Filipinos, especially women, in World War II have not healed. Japan who has still refused to acknowledge its wartime crimes yet is now serving as the U.S. military partner in its Indo-Pacific framework,” the Lila Pilipina mentioned in an announcement.
“Lila Pilipina” means League of Filipino Grandmother in Tagalog, main language of the Philippines. According to the non-profit group that helps these victims search justice, greater than 1,000 Filipino girls have been compelled to function intercourse slaves for the Japanese aggressors when Japan occupied the Philippines from December 1941 till its defeat in August 1945.
Until the early Nineteen Nineties, almost 300 Filipino girls lastly took the braveness to come back out within the open to inform their wartime ordeal.
In 2012, the day of Aug. 14 was designated the International Memorial Day for “Comfort Women” by the eleventh Asian Alliance Conference for “Comfort Women.”
After three many years of combating for his or her rights, there at the moment are only some survivors, most of their 90s and sick, whereas Japan continues to disregard the getting older girls’s plight and calls for on compensation and justice.
Lila Pilipina slammed Japan’s efforts for reaching a navy settlement with the Philippines that may permit Japanese troops and battle materiel to maneuver unhampered within the nation.
“It is a violation of both the Japanese and Philippine Constitutions that both renounce war as instruments of national policy,” the group added.
Lila Pilipina has participated in nationwide and international efforts to forestall and oppose militarism, armed invasion, and their attendant battle crimes. The group, along with different wartime sufferer teams, rallied Monday earlier than the Congress in Metro Manila, demanding the lawmakers cross a invoice to declare Aug. 14 because the “National Memorial Day for Comfort Women.”
The group vowed to “vigorously oppose imperialist wars of aggression, bearing in mind the sufferings that our nation and Filipino women victims of military sexual violence endured during World War II.”