From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgWed Sep 13 12:40:22 1995
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 10:50:00 +0100
From: Debra Guzman <DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.org>
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.