Schools to get teaching materials on 'comfort women'

By Kim Se-jeong

The government will give teaching materials on sexual slavery instigated by the Japanese military during World War II to elementary, middle and high school teachers this month.

Theses materials will help students better understand the sex slavery issue and wartime atrocities committed by Japan, according to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Ministry of Education, Wednesday.

The announcement came just days after the Japanese government revealed that middle school history textbooks will include passages on Japan’s territorial claim to the South Korean islets of Dokdo. On Tuesday, Tokyo also released its 2015 Diplomatic Bluebook which stated that the issue of wartime sexual slavery had already been settled. The Bluebook also refuted the Kono Statement which acknowledged the Japanese military’s coercion of women into sexual slavery.

“We hope these materials will help students understand the sex slavery issue and wartime atrocities committed by Japan better,” Kim Jae-ryeon, an official from the gender equality ministry said.

The educational materials come in five forms: A Power Point presentation, a video, guidebooks for teachers, workbooks for students and computer-based storytelling content.

“These are supplementary materials for teachers who want to teach more in depth about the subject,” Kim explained.

According to media reports, Manabisha, a Japanese textbook publisher had to remove some content about sexual slavery from its books to get approval from the Japanese government.

The original versions included an illustration of a girl with her arm being dragged by a Japanese soldier, an Asian map with dots where the comfort stations were located and an account of the abuse suffered by one Chinese victim.

All of this was removed from the final edition. Instead, the book included claims that, “the recruitment of comfort women was done on a voluntary basis and no evidence was found to support the argument that these women were coerced to offer sex by the Japanese military.”

Another book also authorized on Monday has a sentence saying “Japan views that compensation on the government level was completed.”