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The comfort women - Crimes against humanity
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One of the most horrendous atrocities ever committed against human beings was a secret hidden from the world until 1991. In December of that year a group of Korean women who identified themselves as "military comfort women" filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government for violating their human rights. They claimed that they had been among 200,000 Korean women forced to be sex slaves for Japanese soldiers before and during the Second World War.
The women, now in their 60s or older, had kept silent for all those years out of shame and embarrassment. They had suffered at the hands of the Japanese government as no human beings should be made to suffer. Predictably, the reaction of the Japanese government was complete denial. They claimed that the charges were false. They only admitted to a corps of teishintai(voluntary corps) women who cared for soldiers' needs in the fields, washing clothes and cooking meals. They didn't tell the whole truth.
A month after the lawsuit was filed, a Japanese history teacher discovered WWⅡ military documents that proved the existence of a large-scale system set up to provide sex for soldiers. The government's reasoning was that they wanted to build morale among the troops and to prevent the spread of STDs(sexually transmitted diseases).
The teacher's findings were printed in one of Japan's leading newspapers, forcing the Japanese government to admit the truth. In the years that followed, more and more horrible details came out about the unbelievable ordeal the women had been forced to undergo.
Most girls were kidnapped from their villages or school and thrown into trucks and cargo ships bound for military bases in China. There they were thrown into brothels and forced to have sex with 30 or 40 soldiers a day. If they resisted sex or tried to escape, they would be crippled so that they couldn't run away. If they became ill and were no longer useful, they were killed. The Japanese military's attitude toward them was that they were less than human, on the same level as toilets.
Some of the atrocities committed against them are impossible to even imagine. One former comfort woman said that she had been forced to drink soup made from the severed heads(heads cut off) of two comfort women who were murdered when they refused to cooperate. When the war was over, most of them were thrown into ditches and shot. Others were just abandoned and left to die.
Ironically, many of the details of this terrible 13 -year event(1932 to 1945) have been discovered and revealed by Japanese people. Amazingly, even faced with the facts, the Japanese government still refuses to accept responsibility and apologize for this, one of the worst cases of war crimes ever committed in modern history.
Q1) What was your reaction when you heard about the comfort women for the first time? When and how did you first hear about it - TV, newspaper or magazine article?
Q2) What do you think the Japanese government should do to compensate these women for the horrible things that were done to them? Apology? Money? If so, how much?
Q3) Is there something special about Japan that made them capable of doing such horrible things to other human beings, or are all countries capable of doing the same kind of things? Could Koreans do that? Explain your opinion.
Q4) How do you feel about Japan? Explain your feelings.
a. I like Japanese people because they should not be blamed for the sins of
their grandparents. They are different now.
b. My feelings are so-so. I don't hate them, but I don't like them either.
c. I hate Japanese people for what they did to Koreans in the past.
이 글은「대학연합영어토론동아리」www.pioneerclub.com에서 제공하는 영어토론 정보입니다.
The women, now in their 60s or older, had kept silent for all those years out of shame and embarrassment. They had suffered at the hands of the Japanese government as no human beings should be made to suffer. Predictably, the reaction of the Japanese government was complete denial. They claimed that the charges were false. They only admitted to a corps of teishintai(voluntary corps) women who cared for soldiers' needs in the fields, washing clothes and cooking meals. They didn't tell the whole truth.
A month after the lawsuit was filed, a Japanese history teacher discovered WWⅡ military documents that proved the existence of a large-scale system set up to provide sex for soldiers. The government's reasoning was that they wanted to build morale among the troops and to prevent the spread of STDs(sexually transmitted diseases).
The teacher's findings were printed in one of Japan's leading newspapers, forcing the Japanese government to admit the truth. In the years that followed, more and more horrible details came out about the unbelievable ordeal the women had been forced to undergo.
Most girls were kidnapped from their villages or school and thrown into trucks and cargo ships bound for military bases in China. There they were thrown into brothels and forced to have sex with 30 or 40 soldiers a day. If they resisted sex or tried to escape, they would be crippled so that they couldn't run away. If they became ill and were no longer useful, they were killed. The Japanese military's attitude toward them was that they were less than human, on the same level as toilets.
Some of the atrocities committed against them are impossible to even imagine. One former comfort woman said that she had been forced to drink soup made from the severed heads(heads cut off) of two comfort women who were murdered when they refused to cooperate. When the war was over, most of them were thrown into ditches and shot. Others were just abandoned and left to die.
Ironically, many of the details of this terrible 13 -year event(1932 to 1945) have been discovered and revealed by Japanese people. Amazingly, even faced with the facts, the Japanese government still refuses to accept responsibility and apologize for this, one of the worst cases of war crimes ever committed in modern history.
Q1) What was your reaction when you heard about the comfort women for the first time? When and how did you first hear about it - TV, newspaper or magazine article?
Q2) What do you think the Japanese government should do to compensate these women for the horrible things that were done to them? Apology? Money? If so, how much?
Q3) Is there something special about Japan that made them capable of doing such horrible things to other human beings, or are all countries capable of doing the same kind of things? Could Koreans do that? Explain your opinion.
Q4) How do you feel about Japan? Explain your feelings.
a. I like Japanese people because they should not be blamed for the sins of
their grandparents. They are different now.
b. My feelings are so-so. I don't hate them, but I don't like them either.
c. I hate Japanese people for what they did to Koreans in the past.
이 글은「대학연합영어토론동아리」www.pioneerclub.com에서 제공하는 영어토론 정보입니다.
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