Category Archives: cruelty
Write what you need to write!
P.D. James on writing:
"Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell." Continue reading →
Filed under books, cruelty, documentary, feminism, history, journalism, media, media representation, news, politics, popular culture, women's writing, womens rights
Tagged as "I Hate Feminists!", École Polytechnique, books, Marc Lepine, massacre, Melissa Blais, Montreal, newspapers, PD James, popular culture, Spinifex Press
July 7, 2014 · 20:52
Japan's apology to the survivors of sexual slavery must remain
It was with surprise and regret that I read the news that the present Japanese government is considering revoking its apology to the thousands of women forced into prostitution during World War 11.
Tragically up to 200,000 women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II in one of the world's biggest cases of sexual trafficking. Most of the women came from Korea, with many also from Japan and the Dutch East Indies. Incredibly the sex slaves became known as 'comfort women,' – and the brothels which were insultingly termed 'comfort stations', were spread throughout the Pacific, including then East Timor and the Solomon Islands.
Advertisements such as this one (left) were to be found on billboards of the day. Not surprisingly they failed to attract volunteers into prostitution and so young girls were kidnapped and taken to military rape camps. Most of the women were under the age of 20, with some as young 12 for whom the rape was their first sexual experience.
It wasn't until the 1990s that the Japanese government finally issued a long overdue apology to the surviving women who'd been forced to serve as sex slaves and although the apology didn't include compensation, it admitted that the women were "recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, and so on" and "lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere".
Over recent years the wartime sexual trafficking of women has become a political issue with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe particularly uncomfortable with any reference to the abduction of the women into sexual slavery. Abe is an eager supporter of Japan's alliance with the U.S. government which insists that Japan stand by the 1993 Kono Declaration issued by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono to the women forced into military brothels.
So the Japanese government, hell-bent on un-apologising and undoing the words of the apology is doing just this but without officially withdrawing the declaration. Instead it is casting doubts on the credibility of the victims and changing the meaning of the word 'force' to refer to only extreme cases where women were abducted by gunpoint.
Japan is not alone in having such a despicable history of sexual violence in war. Take the case of post-war Germany when the Russian army invaded Berlin and took the local women as their sex slaves. Presently I'm reading A Woman in Berlin, the astonishing diary of a woman fighting for survival amid the horror and inhumanity of war. The anonymous author was a 34 year-old journalist who kept a diary during the two-month occupation by the Russians. The author did not want the book to be published during her lifetime. When she died in 2001 her identity was still unknown.
Faced with the inevitable event – her impending rape by Russian soldiers, the 'Woman in Berlin' makes up her mind to survive:
I'll think of something when the time comes. I've never been so removed from myself, so alienated. All my feelings seem dead, except for the drive to live. They shall not destroy me.
In Not a Choice, Not a Job, author Janice Raymond discusses the work of The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) in researching and documenting the role of the U.S. military in buying women and children for prostitution all over the world. Raymond explains that CATW Asia- Pacific has connections with organisations of survivors of prostitution in the Philippines which have documented the abuses of military prostitution users around the various U.S. bases.
Japan is not alone in its abuse of women in wartime but it's desire to un-apologise for its role in the sexual abuse of thousands of women is regrettable. The world knows that hundreds of thousands of women were forced into sexual slavery to be systemically raped for the pleasure of the Imperial Japanese Army.
The 1993 apology needs to remain.
Filed under cruelty, news, politics, rape, sex abuse, war, womens rights
Tagged as A Woman in Berlin, apology, CATW, comfort women, Janice Raymond, Japan, military, Not a Choice, Not a Job, sex slaves, sexual trafficking, Shinzo Abe
Every woman needs a safe home every night
How do we stop violence against women?
This was the topic of a public meeting that I attended last week.
The speakers were Trish O'Donohue, the CEO of Women's Information, Support and Housing in the North, Phil Cleary, the former independent federal MP & anti-violence campaigner, and Sue Bolton, Socialist Alliance councillor for Moreland. Continue reading →
Filed under casualisation of labour, community news, cruelty, domestic violence, education, health, history, local news, media, politics, rape, sex abuse, unemployment, womens rights
Tagged as domestic violence, Jill Meagher, Phil Cleary, rape, sexual abuse, Sue Bolton, Trish O'Donohue, women's rights
This article was prompted by another woeful story of sex abuse committed by Catholic church priests. An episode of the ABC's Four Corners, Unholy Silence investigated the abuse involving many children such as altar boy Damien who was fondled and sodomised by Father F and whose life went off the rails precipitating a tragic, early death. For the following few days the program and its graphic material instigated and fed much of the media commentary. But that's as far as it gets. Until the next story of abuse and then the next one.
Filed under clergy, cruelty, media, popular culture, pornography, sex abuse, Sexual abuse, womens rights
Tagged as ABC, catholic, celibacy, church, defence force, Four Corners, patriarchy, pornography, priests, sexual violence, stephen fry
May 6, 2012 · 20:52
Limiting the Medicare rebate for genital surgery is a good move
In parts of Africa, women are tied down and mutilated while in Australia women receive the Medicare rebate for genital surgery Continue reading →
Filed under books, cosmetic surgery, cruelty, Media and health, news, politics, pornography, womens rights
Tagged as FGM, genital surgery, labia, medicare rebate, pornography
The Carnivore's Dilemma
My daughter's been a vegetarian since her early teens. Her reasons are ethical, based on her love of animals. So I was rather surprised that she could watch A Bloody Business, which exposes the brutal killing of cattle in Indonesian abattoirs. Continue reading →
Filed under animal rights, cruelty, ethical meat, news
Tagged as animal rights, Animals Australia, carnivores, ethical meat, ethics, Four Corners, Joel Salatin, Lyn White, meat-eating, Michael Pollan, veganism