Saturday, December 27, 2014

Truth about "Sex Slaves": English Paper in Japan Aplogizes over Using "Sex Slave" Expressions

On 16 December, an English-language newspaper in Japan made an apology for using the term “sex slaves” to describe “comfort women.”

“[The] Daily Yomiuri (hereafter referred to as the DY, and now The Japan News) used “sex slave” and other inappropriate expressions in a total of 97 articles from February 1992 to January 2013 in its reporting

“The expression ‘comfort women’ was difficult to understand for non-Japanese who did not have knowledge of the subject. Therefore the DY, based on an inaccurate perception and using foreign news agencies’ reports as reference, added such explanations…”

The apology does not mention what terms or expressions the paper will use in the future.

If it’s really difficult to understand for non-Japanese,how about women forced into prostitution by poverty,” “women forced into prostitution by parents” or “women forced into prostitution by brokers”? Or “wartime prostitutes” or simply “prostitutes,” as some of them had been, which, I believe, is much easier for everyone in the world to understand.    

Using foreign news agenciesreports as reference”: almost criminal.

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