NGO international tribunal on sex slaves finds Hirohito guilty

The panel urged Japan to compensate the victims, known as comfort women. For the first time ever, many former Asian sex slaves gathered in Tokyo to speak out for justice at the symbolic international war crimes tribunal on the use by Japan's military of forced prostitutes, or comfort women.

"Today, judges have found the Emperor Hirohito guilty of crimes against humanity," said Presiding Judge Gabrielle Mcdonald of the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery, a mock trial organized by non-government organizations. "And judges have found that the state of Japan bears state responsibility for the crimes committed against comfort women and other crimes of sexual violence," the judge said.

A total of 11 people, including the late Emperor Hirohito and General Hideki Tojo, a wartime prime minister, were accused of responsibility for the practice of sexual slavery and the rape by soldiers of an estimated 200,000 sex slaves before and during World War II. Most of the accused are now dead. The tribunal consisted of four judges, led by Mcdonald, the former president of the War Crimes Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, two chief prosecutors and prosecutors from various countries and territories whose nationals became sex slaves.

The tribunal urged Japan to adequately compensate the victims, issue a full and thorough apology, guarantee military sexual slavery will never be repeated, conduct full investigations into the sexual slavery system, establish a memorial or museum on its crimes and ensure that school textbooks meaningfully cover the issue. It also insisted former Allied forces present declassified documents concerning the Japanese military's sexual slavery system and urged the United Nations and other states to take all steps necessary to ensure Japan makes reparations.

Sixty former sex slaves from North and South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, East Timor and the Netherlands testified at the five-day tribunal.

(la/dpa)