The UN recently called again on Japanese government that has long evaded the solution of the Japanese Imperial Army’s sexual slavery issue, to punish the culprits and to pay reparations to the victims.

On November 6, 2022, the UN Human Rights Committee, in its consideration of Japan's periodic Report on the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, expressed regret that “no progress is noticed” with regard to the Japanese government’s response to the Japanese Imperial Army’s sexual slavery issue.

In the same context, the report cited the following facts as its final judgement: The perpetrator has yet to be prosecuted at the criminal court; effective and concrete measures as well as sufficient reparations to the victims still remain pending.

It continued to recommend that the Japanese government promptly prosecutes the relevant culprits, makes reparations to the victims and to the bereaved family, educates people on this issue through such means as textbooks, and denunciates contemptuous treatment of victims as well as any attempts at denying the issue.

In retrospect, the UN and other international human rights-related entities, civil organizations, as well as victims and the bereaved families have constantly demanded Japan for the past thirty years to fulfil its legal and moral obligations for the past violation of human rights.

However, Japanese government, in an attempt to liquidate the crime of sexual slavery with a meagre amount of money, had no reservations about such shameless acts as deceiving or trifling with the victims.

During the review process as well, the Japanese government again repeated its far-fetched assertion, much to the consternation of the world, that the issue of sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army was “resolved conclusively and irreversibly” through the agreement with south Korea in 2015.

Sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army is a case of mass sexual assault committed in a systematic and organized way, an unprecedented crime against women’s rights. It is definitely a war crime and the most heinous one at that against humanity to which the statute of limitations does not apply.

There is only one country in the world which organized and managed the sexual slavery system by means of state power, and has persistently denied such a crime without any investigation nor punishment for it for over seventy years. It is none other than Japan.

Even at this moment, elderly victims of sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army are passing away one by one without closing their eyes, cursing the criminal state of Japan.

More than seventy years have passed since then. But the Japanese government has deliberately evaded addressing the issue of sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army until today. This only reveals Japan’s brazenness and immorality in its stark reality.

Japan should respond to the demand of the international community and discharge legal responsibility and fulfil moral obligations for its mega-scale crime against humanity.