Japan newspaper retracts use of ‘sex slave’ term

导读:日前，日本《读卖新闻》就称慰安妇为“性奴”道歉。这表明，在日本首相安倍晋三为首的民族主义政府怂恿下，日本对二战历史的态度越来越不知反省。

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s biggest newspaper, apologized in print Friday for using the term “sex slaves” in its English-language edition to describe Asian women forced into Japanese military-run brothels during World War II.

周五，日本发行量最大的报纸《读卖新闻》在其晨刊上发表声明，就 “读卖新闻英文版”（即《日本新闻》）使用“性奴”（sex slave）一词来形容二战期间被迫在日军监管下的妓院工作的亚洲妇女道歉。

The conservative Yomiuri said in articles in English and Japanese that it was inappropriate to have used the phrase and others implying the women were coerced to provide sex. The newspaper identified 97 articles, including 85 of its own, with “sex slaves” or similar expressions between 1992 and 2013.

持保守立场的《读卖新闻》在其英日双语文章中表示，使用“性奴”或者其他暗示这些妇女被迫提供性服务的词语都是不恰当的。该报称在1992年至2013年期间，其有97篇文章中出现了“性奴”和类似词语，其中85篇出自自家报纸。

It said non-Japanese people have difficulty understanding the term “comfort women,” used in Japan to describe the women, so its English-language edition added explanations improperly suggesting that “coercion by the Japanese government or the army was an objective fact.”

该报表示，‘慰安妇’一词对于没有相关知识的非日本人来说很难理解。所以它英文版加入了不恰当的解释，暗示“日本政府或军队的胁迫是客观事实。”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, other conservative lawmakers and activists have a long-running campaign against the term “sex slaves,” maintaining the women weren’t forced.

日本首相安倍晋三、其他保守派议员和活动家发动了一场反对“性奴”一词的长期运动，坚称这些妇女不是被迫的。

A government investigation in the early 1990s concluded that many of the women “were recruited against their own will” and “lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere,” according to an apology issued by then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono.

根据当时的内阁官房长官河野洋平发表的道歉声明，90年代初的一项政府调查的结论是许多妇女“遭强征”，“生活在水深火热之中” 。

A staff of the Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace, which fights for the rights of “comfort women” victims, told Xinhua Friday that the so-called apology by Yomiuri proved that the newspaper totally neglected the fact that women under the Japanese wartime military brothels were in a status of “sex slavery.”

周五，“女性的战争与和平资料馆”的一名工作人员告诉新华社记者，《读卖新闻》的所谓道歉证明该报完全忽略了一个事实，那就是日本战时军事妓院的那些妇女的地位就是 “性奴隶”。该馆一直在为慰安妇争取权益。

Japan’s right-wingers have spared no efforts to whitewash or deny the country’s wartime wrongdoing, including the “comfort women” issue. In August, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun acknowledged “major errors” in many articles on the “comfort women” issue, retracting all stories dating back decades ago that quoted Seiji Yoshida, a Japanese man who claimed he kidnapped about 200 Korean women and forced them to work at wartime Japanese military brothels.

日本右翼势力一直在不遗余力地粉饰或否认其战时犯下的罪行，包括“慰安妇”问题。8月，日本《朝日新闻》承认在 “慰安妇”问题的报道存在“重大错误”，撤回了几十年前关于小泽征吉田的报道。这名日本男子声称他绑架了大约200名朝鲜妇女，并强迫她们在日本军队的妓院工作。

Abe, who regained power in 2012, has made restoring pride in Japan’s past a central theme of his political career and has shown a willingness to intervene against news media outlets that he believes stand in the way of that cause. He has spoken out against The Asahi’s reporting on the brothels and installed supervisory board members at Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK. The Yomiuri’s chairman, Tsuneo Watanabe, is a close associate of Abe and the newspaper firmly backs the prime minister.

安倍在2012年重新掌权，他把恢复鬼日本历史的骄傲作为其政治生涯的一个核心主题，并表现出对在他看来妨碍了这项事业的媒体进行干预的意愿。他曾公开谴责《朝日新闻》对军队妓院的报道，并在日本国家电视广播公司NHK的监督委员会安插了多名成员。而《读卖新闻》的会长渡边恒雄在安倍晋三的亲密盟友，该报坚定地支持这位首相。

来源:爱语吧爱语吧作者:Summer