The young nationalist mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, said on Monday that the Japanese military’s forced prostitution of Asian women before and during World War II was necessary to “maintain discipline” in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risked their lives in battle.
He suggested that U.S. troops based in southern Japan should patronize the local sex industry more to help reduce rapes and other assaults.
His remarks are in line with prime minister Abe’s pledges to revise Japan’s past apologies for wartime atrocities made in 1993 by then Prime Minister Yohei Kono, acknowledging and expressing remorse for the suffering caused to the sexual slaves of Japanese troops.
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- Jan Banning
May 4th 1954, Almelo
Dutch photographer and artist. Banning was born in the Netherlands from Dutch-East-Indies parents. He studied social and economic history at the Radboud University Nijmegen, and has been working as a photographer since 1981. A central theme of Banning's practice is state power, having produced series about the long-term consequences of war and the world of government bureaucracy.