The New York State Assembly has passed a resolution honoring a "comfort women" memorial erected last year, saying it "serves as a reminder of the crime against humanity committed" by the Imperial Japanese military.
The nonbinding measure, similar to one passed by the New York Senate in January, was adopted May 7, just days before the issue flared up again in Japan because of contentious remarks made by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto.
The resolution says the Japanese government "officially commissioned" the system of putting "hundreds of thousands of young women from Korea, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia, the Netherlands and elsewhere" into sexual servitude from the 1930s through World War II.
The monument in Westbury's Eisenhower Park was established last June by the local Korean-American community, which the motion commends. Assemblyman Charles Lavine sponsored the resolution, which toned down a condemnation of Japan from an earlier draft.