Japan textbook publisher to erase depictions of 'comfort women'

A textbook publisher in Tokyo has got permission from the government to delete depictions of "comfort women" and references to foreign workers forced to Japan in its civics textbooks for senior high school, local media reported.

According to Japan's Kyodo News Agency, the publisher Suken Shuppan, made a request to the Ministry of Education in November last year and got the approval from the latter recently to erase such references in three social study textbooks -- two on modern social studies and one on politics and economics.

Separate report by the Yomiuri Shimbun said that those textbooks to be used from April have about 1.8 percent to 8.7 percent market share. Suken Shuppan does not publish history textbooks.

In January 2014, the education ministry revised its textbook- screening standards for social studies, asking publishers to state the government's official views or the Japanese Supreme Court's decisions in contentious cases.

Later in August, Japan's Asahi Shimbun published "clarified report" saying that it will retract 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.

Some conservative politicians and right-wing forces took the opportunity to deny the "comfort women" and launch an offensive to the Kono Statement, in which then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoheo Kono admitted the Japanese army involved in recruiting women " through coaxing, coercion, etc."

When asked about why it has chosen to cut these references, Suken Shuppan refused to comment, saying they cannot answer at this point.