(AP) Japan's Abe: No Proof of WWII Sex Slaves

[Eugene]

Japan's Abe: No Proof of WWII Sex Slaves

By KOZO MIZOGUCHI
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 1, 2007; 12:24 PM

TOKYO -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday there was no evidence Japan
coerced Asian women into working as sex slaves during World War II, backtracking
from a landmark 1993 statement in which the government acknowledged that it set
up and ran brothels for its troops.

Abe's comments to reporters came as a group of ruling party lawmakers urged the
government to revise the so-called Kono Statement, which states that Japan's
wartime military sometimes recruited women to work in the brothels with coercion.

"The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion," Abe said. "We have
to take it from there."

Historians say that up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea and China, were forced
to have sex with Japanese soldiers in brothels run by the military government as
so-called "comfort women" during the war.

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Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030100578.html