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Three US congressmen urge Kerry to act on “sex slavery”

January 31, 2014

Three U.S. congressmen Wednesday urged Secretary of State John Kerry to take concrete measures to address the issue of Korean and other Asian women conscripted to serve as sex slave for the Japanese military during World War II.

Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) sent a letter calling on the secretary to have more attention on the issue. They noted in the letter that more than 200,000 – many of them as young as 14 – were forced to serve for the Japanese troops during the war time.

“The Imperial Armed Forces often lured innocent women from their homes under false pretenses, and even resorted to kidnapping, to serve as forced prostitutes serving the Japanese military,” they said in the letter.

The victims “deserve to hear a formal apology” from the Japanese government, they added.

All three congressmen represent districts where memorials to comfort women are located.

They expressed hope that the secretary pay further heed to the historic document attached to a spending bill for fiscal year 2014. President Barack Obama signed it into law on Jan. 17.

The document, albeit nonbinding, calls for Kerry to encourage the Japanese government to deliver an apology for the sexual enslavement.