Amid smoldering opposition from some circles to the planned reference to military "comfort women" in school textbooks, the government-initiated fund to distribute atonement money to the wartime sex slaves will release a paper later this week to state its case.
A draft paper of the Asian Women's Fund does not clearly state the fund's stance on whether the issue of Asian women who were forced to provide sex for members of the Imperial Japanese armed forces before and during World War II should be included in junior high school textbooks. But the draft says the nation's history education "should not make any retreat" from the government's stance presented by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto in August.
In a letter to some former comfort women, Hashimoto said Japan, being aware of its moral responsibility and with feelings of apology and remorse, should "face up squarely to its past history and accurately convey it to future generations." Hashimoto also restated the government's official acknowledgment that Japanese military authorities were involved in organizing military brothels. The letters were distributed when the fund extended 2 million yen in atonement money to four Filipino women in August. The payments were the first since the fund was set up in July 1995.