Revisiting the CEDAW decision on Filipina comfort women
oN International Women’s Day last year, March 8, 2023, the United Nations Committee on Convention on the elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) released a decision, which found that the “Philippines violated the rights of victims of sexual slavery perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War by failing to provide reparation, social support and recognition commensurate with the harm suffered.”
The CEDAW Committee pointed out that the Philippine government had failed to adopt appropriate legislative and other measures to prohibit all discrimination against women and protect women’s rights on an equal basis with men.
It noted that while Philippine war veterans, who are mostly men, are entitled to special and esteemed treatment from the government, such as health care benefits, old age, disability and death pensions, there was no such action with the comfort women.
The Committee found such actions as a breach of the Philippines’ obligations under the CEDAW as a State Party.
The Committee recommended that the victims must be provided with “full reparation, including recognition and redress, an official apology, and material and moral damages” proportion ate to the physical, psychological, and material damage suffered by them and the gravity of the violation of their rights experienced.
In a paper submitted to CEDAW committee on September 4, 2023, the Philippine government described as “more imaginary than real” the alleged restrictive and discriminatory provisions from legislation and policies relating to redress for civilian victims of war, including survivors of wartime sexual violence and slavery.
The Philippine government said that the alleged continuous discriminationcommitted is particularly anchored on the comparison made between the Philippine war veterans, who are predominantly male, and the women victims/survivors of wartime sexual slavery, specifically on the benefits from State- sanctioned special and esteemed treatment, including educational benefits, health-care benefits, old age, disability and death pensions, and burial assistance.
The Philippine government argued that the divergent state actions accorded to the victims of wartime sexual slavery and war veterans are justified on the basis of existing substantial distinctions generally sanctioned by international law and domestic laws of the Philippines.
While the sexual slavery victims and Philippine war veterans may have endured the same war, the Philippine government said that their individual experiences and involvement, as well as the very nature of their consequent sufferings from such are entirely different and distinct from one another.
It stressed that said groups must be classified separately because there is a substantial distinction between them, thus, they cannot and should not be treated as one and the same.
About 200,000 women from Korea, China, Burma, New Guinea, and the Philippines who were held in captivity and raped as part of one of the largest operations of sexual violence in modern history.
The victims have spent their lives in misery, having endured physical injuries, pain and disability, and mental and emotional suffering.
Comfort women advocates Flowers for Lolas, Lila Filipina and Malaya Lolas are still pushing for the implementation of the CEDAW recommendation on the preservation of Bahay na Pula, or the establishment of another space to commemorate the suffering of the victims and honor their struggle for justice. The Philippine government, however, noted that it has no possession or title over the site of the Bahay na Pula since it is a privately owned property.
On November 23, 1944, the women from Mapaniqui, Pampanga were ordered to walk to the Bahay na Pula in San Ildefonso, Bulacan, which became a barracks where they became victims of military sexual violence and slavery. Upon arriving at the mansion, the soldiers forcibly dragged the women, whose ages ranged from 13 to early 20s, into dimly lit chambers where they subjected them to heinous acts of sexual violence.
The Lola statues and the Bahay na Pula represent Filipino women’s dignity and stand as “a reminder that wars of aggression must always be opposed, and that sexual slavery and violence should never happen again to any woman, anywhere, at any time.”
The CEDAW decision said that the government should also cite the wartime sex slaves in school curriculum “as remembrance is critical to a sensitive understanding of the history of human rights violations endured by these women, to emphasize the importance of advancing human rights, and to avoid recurrence.”
From the more than 200 documented survivors in the late 1990s, less than 40 Filipino comfort women are still alive.
The dwindling number highlights a sense of urgency for them to receive a formal, unequivocal public apology and just compensation from Japan as well as accurate historical inclusion while their voices can still be heard.