Koreans Losing Disability Claims against Japanese Government
By Kay Schriner (kays@uark.edu)
The claims of two groups of Koreans for compensation and pensions from the Japanese government were recently denied by Japanese courts.
One group includes South Korean women known as "comfort women" who were held as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II. The women joined with Korean men who were soldiers or military workers to demand compensation. Some of the women have physical disabilities as a result of their enslavement.
A Tokyo District Court dismissed their suit in March, saying their damage claims against the Japanese government were "not thought to be acceptable under international law," according to Judge Shoichi Maruyama.
And in April, the nation's Supreme Court dismissed a claim by two Korean men who had sought disability pensions from Japan for injuries they suffered after being conscripted into the Japanese Imperial Navy. The Court ruled that the 1952 law excluding Korean residents from the disability pension program did not violate the Constitutional guarantee to equality under the law.
The plaintiffs each had lost a limb during the conflict.
Because of the lawsuit filed by these plaintiffs, the Japanese Diet earlier had enacted legislation providing a "condolence" payment of 4 million yen to injured Korean military personnel, and 2.6 million yen to the families of those killed. Critics of the law argue that the amount is too small when compared to the compensatory payment of 80 million yen and lifelong pension received by the an average Japanese military veteran.
For more on these stories, see the Japan Times Online:
"Wartime redress suit rejected", March 27, 2001 at http://www.japantimes.co/jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010327a2.htm
"Wounded Koreans lose war pension suit", April 6, 2001 at http://www.japantimes.co/jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010406a2.htm
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