Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes that:

(i)

15 August 2009 was the 64th anniversary of the conclusion of World War II, and

(ii)

during the war up to 200 000 women and girls were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military and kept in ‘comfort stations’;

(b)

recognises that:

(i)

the Japanese ‘comfort women’ have yet to receive an apology or any official acknowledgement of the grave human rights abuses that were suffered at the hands of the Japanese military, and

(ii)

since 2007, the United States of America, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union (with 27 member countries), South Korea, Taiwan and three city councils in Japan have all passed similar motions calling on the Japanese Government to accept full responsibility and apologise for the abuses of comfort women; and

(c)

calls on the Australian Government to urge the Japanese Government to:

(i)

accept full responsibility for the abuses of comfort women,

(ii)

officially apologise for the crimes committed against the women,

(iii)

provide adequate compensation to comfort women or their immediate families, and

(iv)

accurately teach the history of comfort women in schools.