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[Guardian] Japan urges US publisher to remove comfort women from textbooks

January 16, 2015

 

This picture of "comfort women" were reportedly taken by an American Army photographer in 1944. (Yonhap)

This picture of “comfort women” were reportedly taken by an American Army photographer in 1944. (Yonhap)

[THE GUARDIAN]

Japan has taken its campaign to rewrite its wartime history into the classroom with demands that a United States publisher remove “inaccurate” descriptions of tens of thousands of women who were forced to work as sex slaves before and during the war.

The move by the country’s foreign ministry comes after a Japanese publisher said it would delete text and depictions of the women, most of whom were from the Korean peninsula, from textbooks used in high schools.

Suken Shuppan, a Tokyo-based publisher said it had successfully applied to the education ministry to remove references to “comfort women” – a euphemism for sex slaves commonly used in Japan – from three social studies and politics textbooks.

The publisher has refused to explain why it had sought for permission for the change.

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