Page:Larry Niksch - Japanese Military's Comfort Women System - CRS April 3, 2007.pdf/12

 Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei issued the government’s statement of August 4, 1993. It contained these main points:

—There were “a great number of comfort women.”

—“Comfort stations were operated in response to the request of the military authorities of the day, and the “military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women.”

—“The recruitment of the comfort women was conducted mainly by private recruiters who acted in response to the request of the military.”

—Comfort women, “in many cases…were recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc, and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments.”

—Comfort women “lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere.”

—“A large part” of the comfort women were Korean.

—“The Government of Japan would like to take this opportunity once again to extend its sincere apologies and remorse to all those, irrespective of place of origin, who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.”

The Asian Women’s Fund

In the admissions of 1992 and 1993, Japanese government officials stated that the government would try to assist surviving comfort women. The government’s response was the Asian Women’s Fund, which the government of Socialist Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi set up and which came into being on July 19, 1995. The Asian Women’s Fund announced three programs for former comfort women who applied for assistance: (1) an atonement fund that paid two million yen (approximately $20,000) to each former comfort woman; (2) medical and welfare support programs for former comfort women, paying 2.5-3 million yen ($25,000–$30,000) for each former comfort woman; and (3) a letter of apology from the Japanese Prime Minister to each recipient woman.

The atonement fund issued payments directly to former comfort women from 1996 through 2002, when it ceased operations. During that time, it paid 565 million yen (approximately $5.7 million) to 285 former comfort women. The medical and support programs continued beyond 2002 in some countries. As of March 2006, the Asian Women’s Fund provided 700 million yen (approximately $7 million) for these programs in South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines; 380 million yen (approximately $3.8 million) in Indonesia; and 242 million yen (approximately $2.4 million) in the