Japan urges US publisher to remove comfort women from textbooks
Japan has taken its campaign to rewrite its wartime history into the classroom with demands that a US publisher remove “inaccurate” descriptions of tens of thousands of women who were forced to work as sex slaves before and during the war. The move by the country’s foreign ministry comes after a Japanese publisher said it would delete text and depictions of the women, most of whom were from the Korean peninsula, from textbooks used in high schools.
The move by the country’s foreign ministry comes after a Japanese publisher said it would delete text and depictions of the women, most of whom were from the Korean peninsula, from textbooks used in high schools.
Suken Shuppan, a Tokyo-based publisher said it had successfully applied to the education ministry to remove references to “comfort women” – a euphemism for sex slaves commonly used in Japan – from three social studies and politics textbooks. The publisher has refused to explain why it had sought for permission for the change.
Under Abe, a nationalist, Japan has attempted to play down controversial episodes in its modern history, including the Rape of Nanking, the treatment of Allied prisoners of war, and the coercion of as many as 20,000 women, most of whom were from the Korean peninsula, to work at military brothels.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-us-publisher-delete-references-comfort-women