![\"Toru](\"http:\/\/rt.com\/files\/news\/1f\/11\/00\/00\/5.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe proximity of the battlefield gave rise to the \u2018comfort women\u2019 system on Japanese-occupied territories in the 1930s, according a Japanese politician. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Korean women were forced into sex slavery at the time.<\/p>\n
All is fair in love and war, espoused Toru Hashimoto, the mayor
\nof Osaka and co-founder of nationalistic opposition party Nippon
\nIshin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party).<\/p>\n
Those sex slaves were euphemistically called \u2018comfort women\u2019 and
\ncame from several countries, mostly China and Korea, but also from
\nIndonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan. It is believed that no less
\nthan 200,000 women passed through this system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the circumstances in which bullets are flying like rain
\nand wind, the soldiers are running around at the risk of losing
\ntheir lives. If you want them to have a rest in such a situation, a
\ncomfort women system is necessary. Anyone can understand that,\u201d<\/i>
\nHashimoto told reporters at the Osaka City Government building.
\nBrothels were needed \u201cto maintain discipline in the military –
\nit must have been necessary at that time,\u201d<\/i> he
\nspecified.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hashimoto stressed that he is familiar with the history of the
\nperiod and insisted that sex slavery was common not only in the
\nJapanese army, an obvious reference to alleged \u2018Joy Divisions\u2019 in
\nNazi concentration camps in Europe during World War II.<\/p>\n
An unidentified government official told South Korean Yonhap
\nnews agency that Seoul is disappointed that a senior Japanese
\nofficial \u201cmade comments supportive of crimes against humanity and
\nrevealed a serious lack of a historical understanding and respect
\nfor women’s rights,\u201d AP reported.<\/p>\n
But Toru Hashimoto refused to deny that comfort women were
\nforced to provide sexual services against their will.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a result of the tragedy of the war that they became
\ncomfort women against their will. The responsibility for the war
\nalso lies with Japan. We have to politely offer kind words to
\n[former] comfort women,\u201d<\/i> he said, following the path of former
\nJapanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, who in his tenure
\napologized to those Asian countries that Japan colonized in the
\nfirst half of the 20th century.<\/p>\n
In 1995, the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II,
\nTomiichi Murayama issued a statement in which he acknowledged that
\nthe Japanese military forces were \u201cseriously involved\u201d<\/i> in
\n\u201cstaining the honor and dignity of many women\u201d<\/i> and offered
\nhis profound apology to all wartime comfort women who suffered
\n\u201cemotional and physical wounds that can never be
\nclosed.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
The current position of the Japanese government has suffered
\nlittle change since then.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stance of the Japanese government on the comfort women
\nissue is well known. They have suffered unspeakably painful
\nexperiences. The [present PM] Abe cabinet has the same sentiments
\nas past cabinets,\u201d<\/i> Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told
\njournalists on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
However, the co-leader of Japan Restoration Party expressed
\nsupport to the contrary position of PM Shinzo Abe, who recently
\nmade a controversial statement that Japanese aggression in WWII is
\nyet to be defined. The statement sparked outrage in South Korea and
\nChina.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Prime Minister Abe is saying is correct in that,
\nacademically, there are no definitions on aggression,\u201d<\/i>
\nHashimoto said.<\/p>\n
![\"](\"http:\/\/admin.rt.com\/files\/news\/1f\/11\/00\/00\/26.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
But the co-leader of the opposition party went even further.
\nLast week Toru Hashimoto visited Japan\u2019s southernmost Okinawa
\nprefecture, which hosts the US largest military bases in Japan.
\nThere he met local politicians to discuss uniting forces in
\nreplacing American military from the prefecture\u2019s main island.
\nAlso, during a meeting with American military brass there, he
\nproposed that the US marines should use local sexual facilities
\nmore actively to control sexual energies.<\/p>\n
Hashimoto tweeted on Tuesday that official military brothels are
\nnothing new and that immediately after the WWII the Allied
\nOccupation forces in Tokyo established the Recreation and Amusement
\nAssociation, which ran a number of brothels for soldiers.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon\u2019s spokesperson has dubbed Hashimoto\u2019s remark
\n\u2018ridiculous\u2019, The Japan Times reported, while Tokyo officially
\nspecified that the remark was made by an opposition politician and
\nrepresents his own opinion.<\/p>\n
Still, there is a chance that both Washington and Tokyo misread
\nHashimoto\u2019s intent. He may have been referring to Okinawa\u2019s already
\nexisting \u2018bath houses\u2019, which is a delicate name for accommodation
\nhouse, to large extent to save the local female population from
\nsexual harassment by the American contingent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Usually heavily-censored by Japanese authorities, the cases of
\nrape of the local women and girls by the US contingent on Okinawa
\nhappen on a regular basis. The last trial on rape charges against
\nAmerican servicemen on Okinawa took place in March this year, when
\ntwo US Navy sailors were convicted and sentenced to prison term for
\nraping and robbing a local woman, AP reported.<\/p>\n