From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgWed Sep 13 12:40:22 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 10:50:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing95-l@netcom.com, beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: WCW: Japan's new fund for Asian women [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ## Original in: /HRNET/WOMEN ## author : theearthtime@igc.apc.org ## date : 07.09.95 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Japan's new fund for Asian women By Vivek Menezes Earth Times News Service BEIJING--North Korea's chief delegate at the Fourth World Conference on Women demanded yesterday that Japan make reparations to her country for violence committed against women during the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula during World War II. The delegate, Yun Gi Jong, also urged that Japan formally recognize the incidents from 50 years ago as a war crime, and fund schemes to make amends directly to the women involved. Within minutes after she had spoken at the Conference plenary, Japanese officials said that their government wanted to obtain the right to reply to her address. Acknowledging that the North Korean's speech was "impressive, direct and straightforward," Yoshiki Mine, deputy head of the Japanese delegation, said that his government was trying very hard to come up with a program that would resolve the issue and satisfy all the parties involved. He pointed to the new Asian Women's Fund as one of the ways Japan could answer the questions posed by North Korea. The Fund has been created by Japan to finance projects for the so-called "comfort women" as well as for other female victims of violence. The Asian Women's Fund also marks a departure from Japans usual policy of providing money directly to governments. For the first time, the money provided will go to nongovernmental organizations who are presently being asked to assess their fiscal needs. Mine stressed that he would not like to see any particular limitations placed on the scope of activities in the new program. While it would naturally start with redressing problems which are Japan-related, eventually it could include victims of violence across the Asian continent. "The funds will be entirely need-related," said Mine. "To begin with, comfort women will need assistance, welfare, physical care and psychological help." He has already visited North Korea and Taiwan to survey the extent of the problem and has helped set up an advisory committee which will make the final recommendation as to disbursement of funds. "Comfort women" were forcibly enlisted to serve the physical needs of Japanese soldiers during the last war. "This is a new important step by our government," said Mine referring to the new fund. "But it is only the first one made to improve the situation. The physical and psychological damage suffered by the comfort women is very, very serious. While the government has taken the legal position that it has settled all problems related to the war, it is also at the same time very concerned about these issues and is willing to think about measures well beyond the areas of legal responsibility. He added that the Japanese are very sensitive to this issue, particularly concerning the domestic media blitz about the situation, but he believed that people should open their eyes to see the whole problem of women and violence, and put it into perspective.