동아시아의 여성정책 -일본정부의 일본군‘위안부’ 정책을 중심으로-

As a starting point of the discussion on women policies in East Asia, there should be some resolutions in the issue of ‘comfort women.’ Remaining as a remnant of 20th century, it is one of the most pressing historical issue of East Asia, as well as the greatest humanitarian issue of the international society. This issue brings an alarm to the 21st century because it hinders the development of women policy in East Asia as a whole as the main source of the black hole of the human rights problem. In the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) held in June 2008, the government of Japan proposed its ‘comfort women’ policy, which includes apologies through Kono Dialogue, reparation through Asian Women Fund, and legal solution through treaties, based on the grounds that are highly beneficial for its national interest. It is considered to be a response to worldwide adoption of the ‘Comfort Women’ resolution, which started from the US Congress in July 2007 and expanded to legislatures of the Netherlands, Canada, European Union, and etc. However, the policy by the Japanese government is criticized by following reasons. Firstly, ever since its first term, the Abe cabinet not only denied the compulsory mobilization of comfort women, but also defamed credibility of the Kono Dialogue by announcing the verification results and degenerated it as a mere political rhetoric. Secondly, Asian Women Fund is a mere hedging instrument to avoid criticisms for the crime against humanity without any considerations on the demand of the victims for proper apologies and reparations. Already, in 1998, the McDugall Report stated that it should be replaced with a new fund consisted of proper international representatives. Thirdly, regarding to Japan’s solution through treaty, the Constitutional Court in 2011 and the Supreme Court in 2012 made a historical decision that “the claims for damages done by the atrocities and crimes during the Japanese colonial rule were not included in the contents of the Korea-Japan Normalization Agreement in 1965” after the Joint Declaration of Korea-Japan Intellectuals in 2010 that announce that ‘the Annexation Treaty in 1910 was invalid.’ These are counters against the previous Japanese claims that ‘colonial rule was inevitable’ in 1910 and ‘all reparations were completed via Korea-Japan Normalization Agreement’ in 1965. Despite such criticisms, after inter-governmental consensus between Korea and Japan in 2015, Deputy Director-general of Japanese Foreign ministry, Sugiyama Shinsuke, denied the compulsory mobilization of comfort women during CEDAW in February 16th 2016, and uploaded this statement to the homepage. Foreign Minister, Kishida Humio, emphasized the completion of the deal in 1965 and Prime Minister Abe opposed to write apology letter to the victims. Seen from this process. it is a typical case of denial of comfort women, the atrocity against women, and damage to fundamentals of the inter-governmental consensus. In its final analysis, the comfort women issue was an atrocity against human rights, which is an universal virtue. Thus, the Japanese government should apologize and compensate for the damages of the comfort women victims and recover their dignity, and implement policies to be responsible for punishment of the perpetuators and prevention of such atrocity against humanity. As the most important historical issue of East Asia, and the most pressing humanitarian issue of the international society, the comfort women issue should be resolved promptly.