Tokyo University professor Nobukatsu Fujioka yesterday urged educators to refrain from teaching their students about the Japan government’s sexual enslavement of about 200,000 women during WWII, arguing that the alleged atrocities never occurred.
Fujioka contends that the Japanese military’s “comfort women” were “simply prostitutes taken to war zones by private brokers” and argues that the women’s claims of sexual enslavement were “fabricated.” Fujioka further contended that about 40% of the women were Japanese, contesting other reports that most were abducted or lured from Korea, China, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Fujioka further claimed that the revision of history books and curricula is necessary to protect children’s emotional well-being, saying, “There is nothing to be gained from delving into the darker aspect of human nature, that of sexual desire in an abnormal situation, wartime, when children first learn about the relationship of love and sexual intimacy.” Fujioka fears that knowledge of Japan’s atrocities would prompt boys to view girls as sex objects and would cause girls to consider boys “beasts.”
Fujioka chairs the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform. The Society’s goal is to eliminate all references to government atrocities from children’s history books.
