High school textbook with no mention of comfort women to be authorized
On April 9, Japan's Ministry of Education and Science authorized a high school history textbook entitled
In the part describing enforced mobilization,
The Ministry of Education and Science explains, "The textbook authorization system does not allow us to instruct writers to include contents that they did not choose to put in their books."
Professor Ju Jin Oh of Sangmyong University says, "The Ministry explained last year that it was cutting out mention of comfort women from middle school textbooks because it was 'uneducational' to teach middle school students about comfort women. By leaving out the same contents in high school textbooks, the Ministry is going against its own rationale. The Japanese government's lack of conscientiousness despite being fully aware of public sentiments in Korea points to Japan's intentions to revert to the state ideology it embraced before World War 2."
The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan points out, "Considering that the Japanese government has already officially acknowledged in 1993 the role of the Japanese military in drafting comfort women, the deliberate omission of these facts in a high school history textbook is an undeniable slander against the victims."
The Council also added, "The Council has joined hands with other women and civic groups in Korea to launch a campaign to resolve the issue of comfort women, and international organizations like the UN and ILO have continuously recommended legal compensation and corrective history education to Japan. The recent move by the Ministry of Education is a clear show of disregard for the recommendations of international bodies." The Council declared that it will "continue to expose the anachronistic acts of the Japanese government through the international media."
Yang Mi Gang, senior executive chairman of the Headquarters for the Campaign to Correct Japanese History Textbooks, revealed that the campaign will move to "analyze in detail each period contained in the
The controversial textbook, having now passed examination, will go on to be displayed in the textbook fair in August, and if selected by individual schools, will be used in high schools across the country from April onwards.
The issue of comfort women has been a high point of interest in Korea-Japan relations. However, even the Korean government has not been active in seeking to restore the honor of the comfort women. Although