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Army gets a pat from Japanese rights expert

The absence of an international law to redress the grievances of victims of rape by military troops in various countries has galvanised human rights activists to take up the issue on a global scale.

But renowned Japanese professor of law and former district judge Inabe Yasue, during a recent visit to India as part of her study of international law on rape claims, has given a clean chit to the Indian Army.

Dr Yasue told United News of India that she had found during her research that the Indian armed forces were among the most civilised as they were never accused of raping East Pakistani [now Bangladeshi] women during the 1971 war with Pakistan.

Citing other instances of atrocities on women, she said there has been an increase in the incidence of rape of Japanese girls by the American soldiers stationed at the Okinawa army base in Japan.

Dr Yasue, former chief judge of Naha district in Japan, said she had resigned the post to take up the cause of rape victims by army personnel.

In the post-World War II scenario, international human rights law has so far not provided any remedy to such victims, she said.

Working at present as a professor of criminal law at Pynkyu University on Okinawa island, she is actively involved in the cause of women and children.

Dr Yasue said the Japanese government is under pressure to compensate the women in the Philippines, Korea and Singapore who fell prey to the Imperial Japanese Army which was based in these countries during the War.

Though the government has established a forum to investigate the matter of compensation, it wants the victims to come to Japan to file their claims, which is not easy, she added.

UNI

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