A "Statue of Peace" has been unveiled in Stintino, in the province of Sassari, Sardinia: it is a bronze sculpture showing a woman with oriental features sitting next to an empty chair, and was donated to the town by a South Korean foundation, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan. It is part of a series of similar statues that have been unveiled in recent years in various parts of the world with the aim of remembering the so-called "comfort women", some 150-200 thousand young Chinese and Korean girls who were recruited sometimes by force and sometimes by deception to serve the Japanese military as prostitutes during World War II. There is a strong conservative movement in Japan that still tends to downplay the extent of that violence or deny it, even though the country acknowledged its crimes as early as 1992, when then-Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa apologized "from the bottom of his heart” to the victims. It is a fact that Japanese Ambassador to Italy Satoshi Suzuki asked Stintino Mayor Rita Vallebella to change the plaque accompanying the sculpture, which contains a passage claiming that Japan has not acknowledged its crimes and has never compensated the families of raped women. Vallebella responded that “the Korean victims we are celebrating at this time represent all the women of the world, including those who now suffer violence, such as Ukrainian, Palestinian, and African nationals”.
|