‘Comfort Women’ Lose Suit Demanding Redress

A Tokyo court rejected a lawsuit today filed against Japan by two “comfort women” from China who had demanded redress, saying they were kidnapped and forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers during World War II.

The rejection of the lawsuit, which was filed in February 1996, is in line with the Japanese government’s position that all wartime compensation issues with China were settled by a September 1972 joint statement that established diplomatic ties.

The plaintiffs, 75-year-old Gou Xi Cui, and Hou Qiao Lian, who died in May 1999, had demanded that Japan pay each of them $173,300 in damages and publish apologies in four major Japanese newspapers.