Campaigners call for the plight of women used as sex slaves in the Philippines to be acknowledged by the education system and the Japanese government, as Avigail Olarte reports from Manila.

The elderly protesters held their placards in silence but their message came across loud and clear: A call for justice for "comfort women", a euphemism for those who suffered brutal sexual abuse by the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces during World War II.

At a rally held under a scorching sun outside the Japanese embassy in Manila on March 5, one of the victims, 83-year-old Aberan de los Reyes, called on the Japanese government "to apologize and admit it (sexual slavery) really happened". De los Reyes was joined by a group of around 60 women, including family members spanning three generations, at the annual gathering.

In the Philippines, 174 women and girls, some as young as 12, suffered unimaginable horrors during the war. For almost half a century following Japan's surrender, the women were kept in the shadows, faceless, nameless and ashamed. Although 65 of them have died over the years, many of the survivors have banded together to support each other, determined to make their voices heard.

Collectively, they are known as lolas, which means "grandmothers". This year, they took to the rally with extra determination. As tensions have been building in the region because of territorial disputes, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for a revision of Japan's Constitution to boost the country's military capabilities.

If the revision goes ahead, it will nullify Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which forbids the use of war to settle international disputes.

"We don't want any more wars," said Richelda Extremadura, executive director of Lila Pilipina, or the League of Filipino Women, an organization of former comfort women and their supporters. "We appeal to the Japanese people to be vigilant and safeguard the life they have now. Please preserve Article 9."

De los Reyes can recall vividly the day her life changed. She and her classmates, girls aged 12 to 13, were handpicked by Japanese soldiers and escorted from their classrooms. Taken to a garrison nearby, they were locked in cubicles, and repeatedly raped and beaten. At night, they would hear each other's cries.

"We were raped at least five times a day," she said.

'Learn from the past'

Another lola, who goes by the name Virgie, stepped out from the crowd at the embassy and demanded not only action over the war crimes, but also for the Japanese government to put an end to aggression.

"We've been demanding justice for so long. Abe must learn from the past and resolve this crime against humanity," she said.

Virgie and a dozen other lolas demanded not only an apology, but also legal redress and compensation.

According to Lila Pilipina, none of the women has received any assistance from the Japanese or Philippine governments despite years of struggling before international and local courts, telling their stories to the media and taking to the streets to make their voices heard.

"That is the sad reality," Extremadura said. "We cannot go to the legal arena, we cannot go to Congress. So the streets are the only places open for us."

In 2010, the Philippine Supreme Court denied the comfort women's petition to hold the Japanese government accountable for crimes committed during the war.

Extremadura said the Philippine government was satisfied with an apology made by the then-Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2002. In a letter, Koizumi said the sexual slavery was "a grave affront to the honor and dignity of a large number of women".

Between 80,000 to 200,000 women in South Korea, China and the Philippines are believed to have been forced into sexual slavery.

Koizumi's apology was later rendered meaningless when in 2007, during his first term as prime minister, Abe issued a controversial statement saying that women were not forced to be sex slaves because "there was no evidence to prove there was coercion".

In May 2013, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto sparked protests by saying sex slaves played a necessary role in providing relief for Japanese soldiers during the war.

Extremadura responded to Hashimoto's comments by saying Japan simply "cannot rewrite history by justifying such wrongful acts and thus exonerate its crimes against women".

Lila Pilipina has for years fought for the inclusion of the comfort women's experience in the country's history textbooks. But not a single line has been devoted to their story.

High school students graduate with little or no knowledge of the abuse the women endured during the Japanese occupation.

However, they heard tales last month, because March was "women's month" in the Philippines, when it is customary for television stations to air stories about the lolas.

Two history textbooks used in secondary schools provide accounts of Japan's occupation, including the notorious Bataan Death March when more than 10,000 Filipino and US prisoners of war died during a forced march to a prison camp. The suffering of the comfort women is not mentioned, though.

The Gabriela Women's Party, a group dedicated to promoting the rights of marginalized and under-represented Filipino women, filed a bill in Congress to address the neglect of comfort women in the country's education system.

'Historical silence'

"All too often, there is a historical silence about the brutality and sexual slavery endured by Filipino women under the Japanese occupation," the bill said. "More than half a century has passed since the end of the war and yet the continuing struggle for justice for the Filipino comfort women still remains officially unacknowledged in our history books and curricula."

"Such a silence only adds to the historical injustice," it added.

The group, along with Lila Pilipina, has been campaigning for the inclusion of comfort women in the primary, secondary and tertiary curricula in Philippine schools. Some teachers, however, go beyond the curriculum to give a fuller picture of the suffering of the Filipinos during the period.

On March 8, Mabelle Caboboy, a history teacher at Manuel A. Roxas High School in Manila, joined members of Lila Pilipina as they took to the streets to mark International Women's Day.

In her work, Caboboy uses videos and supplementary readings to relate the horrors of war. She tells her students about the women who dug holes under their huts to hide with their children and escape the Japanese troops. When in the open, women and girls would douse their skirts with chicken's blood in the hope the soldiers would not touch them.

She also tells the stories of the men who were slaughtered, the children who were killed with bayonettes and the mothers and daughters who were raped, sometimes in front of their families.

"As a woman, and a teacher of history, I am morally obligated to tell their story," she said.

A group of lolas (grandmothers), including 83-year-old Aberan de los Reyes (left), attend a protest in Manila on March 5 to seek justice for victims of sexual abuse during World War II. Avigail Olarte / For China Daily

A woman places a flower to commemorate deceased comfort women during a 2012 ceremony held outside Japan's representative office in Taipei, Taiwan. David Chang / For China Daily

(China Daily 04/01/2014 page6)