Japanese female lawmakers chide Hashimoto's wrong remarks

Japanese female lawmakers on Tuesday chided the wrong remarks on "comfort women" made by Japan's Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto and asked the outspoken politician to retract his insensitive words. Mizuho Fukushima, chief of Japan's Social Democratic Party, said in a press conference at Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan that Hashimoto quibbled over the remark in Monday's press conference. Saying in a press conference at the club on Monday, Hashimoto denied his remarks on wartime "comfort women" and criticized media for "reporting only a portion of each of his remarks" and the media reports were cut off from the whole context. Kiyomi Tsujimoto, deputy chief of Japan's opposition the Democratic Party of Japan, said that it is the wavering attitude of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet toward history triggered Hashimoto's controversial remarks. Tomoko Tamura, an upper house member from the Japan Communist Party, said that the Japanese government is indeed responsible for the issue of "comfort women" and that Hashimoto's words distorted history and damaged the base of Japan's relations with neighboring countries. Hashimoto said on May 13 that the "comfort women" system is "necessary" to keep disciplines in Japanese army in wartime and suggested the U.S. servicemen to "use legal adult entertainment." On Monday, Hashimoto apologized to the United States, but refused to retract his remark on "comfort women" and tried to whitewash the Japanese government's involvement on the issue. Then Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei in 1993 released a statement, in which Japan officially acknowledges the fact that the Japanese military forced women from Korean Peninsula and China to be sexual slaves for its aggression army. According to historians, an estimated 200,000 women were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese forces during World War II, and most of them came from countries invaded by Japan at the time.