Japan is to consider revising its landmark apology for its wartime system of sex slavery, a top official said on Monday, in a move likely to draw fury in South Korea and beyond.
Evidence given by “comfort women” - those forced to work in military brothels - that forms the basis of the 1993 Kono Statement, is to be re-examined, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Monday.
“The testimonies of comfort women were taken on the premise of their being closed-door sessions. The government will consider whether there can be a revision while preserving” the confidence in which they were given, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.
Suga’s comment came after a weekend opinion poll, jointly conducted by the nationalistic Sankei Shimbun daily and Fuji TV, in which 59 per cent of respondents said the apology should be revised.
Most recently, the issue was further inflamed when Katsuto Momii, the new head of Japan’s national broadcaster NHK, said sex slavery was common in many militaries and was only wrong when judged against modern morality.
Respected historians say up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea but also from China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan, were forced to serve as sex slaves in Japanese army brothels.
However, a minority of right-wing Japanese insist there was no official involvement by the state or the military and say the women were common prostitutes.