by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Thursday, April 8, 1993:
DAP calls on the Japanese Government to apologise and pay compensation to Malaysia following the discovery of documents in the Japanese archives proving the existence of comfort women and brothels in Malaysia during World World 2
DAP calls on the Japanese Government to apologise and pay compensation to Malaysia following the discovery of documents in the Japanese archives proving the existence of comfort women and brothels in Malaysia during World World 2
Kyodo news agency yesterday reported from Tokyo that a Japanese researcher at the Museum of Liberty Osaka, Chikako Miyamae, has unearthed documents in the Defence Agency archives compiled by the former Japanese Imperial Army which showed the existence of comfort women and brothels in Malaysia during the Japanese occupation.
These documents comprised four monthly reports issued by the Japanese Imperial Army’s Malaysian division in 1943 and 1944.
A monthly report from February 1944 showed how sanitary goods, including 75,000 condoms, were contributed to special brothels in Malaysia according to the number of comfort women there that month.
The other reports, issued in July, August and September 1943, recorded the distribution of condoms to regions in Malaysia, and in one instance, 30,000 were sent to Penang.
This is the first time documents had been discovered proving the existence of comfort women and brothels in Malaysia during the Japanese occupation, which could not be denied in any way by the Japanese Government.
I will press the Government in the coming meeting of Parliament to officially request to officially request for an apology and compensation from the Japanese Government for the heinous crime of operating comfort women and brothels in Malaysia.
The previous compensations paid by the Japanese Government in connection with the war atrocities during the Japanese Occupation could not have covered the crime of making these victims of the ‘comfort women camps’ and brothels in Malaysia the sex slaves of Japanese soldiers.
I have also given notice to raise the following question during question time in the Dewan Rakyat next month:
“To ask the Prime Minister whether the Government would officially ask the Japanese Government to apologise and pay compensation for the heinous crimes of the Japanese Imperial Army running ‘comfort women camps’ and brothels in Malaysia during the Japanese Occupation – as recently revealed by the discovery of Japanese Imperial Army documents in the Japanese Defence Agency archives.”