South Korea court orders Japan to compensate 'comfort women', reverses earlier ruling

Salamendacious@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 185 points –
South Korea court orders Japan to compensate 'comfort women', reverses earlier ruling
reuters.com

SEOUL, Nov 23 (Reuters) - A South Korean appellate court on Thursday ordered Japan to compensate a group of 16 women who were forced to work in Japanese wartime brothels, overturning a lower court ruling that dismissed the case and prompting a stern protest from Tokyo.

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I appreciate the work. I know that the government of Japan has not addressed its role in the war well. I just wanted to know if the two people talking about their perspectives as Japanese people (regardless of nationality) were actually speaking from experience or not.

If your perspective is based solely on government action, that’s entirely fair (though not what I expected). I’m American born, but live in Germany and am in the naturalization process here (perhaps why nationality isn’t important to me- people whose families have been living in Germany for four plus decades are frequently not citizens), so I understand shame in your government’s actions, specifically to the degree that the governmental position is more important than the general public opinion (a typical American would probably not have an opinion towards American interaction in the Philippines, for example, so the government position is the only relevant one).

In that case though, I agree that it’s irrelevant that you’re Japanese, as you’re forming your opinion not on your experience with Japanese people, but on official government documents.