Formulating Japan’s UNSCR 1325 national action plan and forgetting the “comfort women”

ABSTRACT

In September 2015, the Japanese government announced its first national action plan (NAP) to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1325, just ten days after forcefully legislating controversial security bills that would effectively lift the constitutional restrictions on overseas exercise of military force. Why did the conservative administration embrace Resolution 1325 while propelling militarization? This paper examines the formulation process of Japan’s NAP, focusing on gendered struggle over remilitarization and war memory, especially that of the “comfort women,” or Japanese imperial military sexual slavery during World War II. I will examine how post–Cold War remilitarization in Japan was closely intertwined with the struggle over war memory and the gender order of the nation, and how the conservative administration embraced international gender equality norms in an attempt to identify itself as a powerful liberal democracy engaged in maintaining the international security order, and to erase the memory of imperial military sexual violence in the past. By doing so, I attempt to critically reconsider the framework of the UN Women, Peace and Security agenda, which constructs powerful developed nations “not in conflict” as innocent supporters of women in conflict zones.

KEYWORDS:

• Security Council Resolution 1325
• Women
• Peace and Security
• military sexual violence
• imperialism
• militarization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Hisako Motoyama is a feminist peace activist and doctoral student of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan.

Notes

1. See for example Tryggestad 2009; Pratt and Richter-Devroe 2011; McMinn 2015; Kirby and Shepherd 2016.

2. Japanese imperial military set up and managed the “comfort women” system between 1931 and 1945 in occupied areas of Asia and the Pacific, in order to respond to increasing rape against local women as well as risks of sexually transmitted diseases infection among soldiers. For details of the system, see Yoshimi (2000).

3. In Japan, all textbooks to be used in schools have to be approved by the Ministry of Education (MOE) every four years. This authorization process by the state has been criticized as censorship, as in the case of the lawsuits filed by historian Saburo Ienaga that lasted more than thirty years. History textbooks, and in particular descriptions on the modern wars and colonization, have caused controversies, reflecting conflicting views in society. In 1997, the MOE authorized seven new history textbooks for junior high schools that had been prepared for the first time since the Japanese government had admitted state involvement in the “comfort women” system in 1993. It was the first time that junior high school history textbooks made references to the issue, and that the MOE approved them. Although this was simply a reflection of the state policy, it enraged nationalists who had already been displeased by the Kono statement (1993). For further discussion of the controversies over the “comfort women” issue in textbooks, see Takayama (2009).

4. For a further discussion on international propaganda on the “comfort women” issue by historical revisionist movements, see Yamaguchi et al. (2016).

5. MOFA’s stress on “human security” was specifically reflected in its proposal that the Japanese NAP should cover natural disasters. MOFA apparently believed that Japan could claim to have good practice in this area, especially after the large-scale earthquake and tsunami hit the Northeast Japan in 2011. On the other hand, some CSWG members questioned the idea of addressing natural disasters alongside manmade conflicts, as well as the claim that Japan has unique advantage in gender-sensitive disaster response. It was eventually agreed by both sides that the NAP would include both external and domestic actions for improved gender-sensitive response to natural disasters.

6. A number of organizations in Japan and the Republic of Korea have issued statements criticizing the agreement such as the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (2015) and the Nationwide Action for Resolution of the Japan’s Military “Comfort Women” Issue (2015). See also the comments made by the UN Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW 2016b, paras 28–29) on the insufficiencies of state responses to the issue after the agreement. On the geopolitics behind the agreement, see also Word and Lay (2016).