Sex crimes and prostitution

Contents

The heady mix of machismo and militarism that
pervades US army bases generally means trouble
for relations with local women. The areas surrounding
many bases have high levels of prostitution,
while the government agreements protecting US
soldiers from prosecution mean that sex crimes are
rarely met with adequate severity.

US military authorities have tended toward the idea
that prostitution provides a useful way for soldiers
stationed thousands of miles from wives or girlfriends
to “let off steam”. The welfare of the
women providing these “rest and recreational”
opportunities is rarely of concern: prostitution
around bases and ports used by US navy ships in
the Philippines and Thailand fuels the trafficking of
women throughout south-east Asia, while living
conditions and standards of health amongst sex
workers are often low. The attitude of US army doctors
to local women seeking HIV tests illustrates
military attitudes – women are tested to ensure that
they are a safe, HIV-free commodity for the soldiers,
but are not offered safe sex advice or supplies
to protect themselves.

While military chiefs are able to dismiss the welfare
of sex workers as an issue of the womens professional
choice, reality shows a more complex situation,
with many women not selecting this as a profession
but regarding themselves as genuine partners
who are then shocked to find themselves abandoned
when military personnel move on. It is estimated
that since 1945 there have been 50,000
unacknowledged children of US soldiers in the
Philippines alone, and these receive none of the
benefits of US military families, such as healthcare,
housing and education. Similar problems have been
reported around US bases in Germany and the UK.

The most extreme examples of the use and abuse
of women by the US military are found in the high
rate of sex crimes, including pedophilia, around
army bases. High profile examples, such as the
grotesquely sexualised murder of a young woman
bar worker by a US serviceman in Korea in 1992
and the rape of a 12 year old girl in Okinawa by
three GIs in 1995 are just the visible end of the
everyday difficulties faced by women and girls in
base towns from Honduras to Guam to Labrador.
Studies from the US occupation of Japan in the
1950s show soldiers giving rape victims rationed
food items, in order to turn the crime – at least in
the perpetrator's eyes – into a commercial event
encouraged by military policy. In its continued
condoning of the use of large-scale prostitution
and its refusal to take responsibility for the safety
of women around its bases, the US military's attitudes
continue to facilitate the use of women as
objects in this way.

Okinawa

Seventy-five per cent of the US bases in Japan are
concentrated on Okinawa, a tiny island occupying
just 0.6 per cent of the country’s land area. These
occupy many of the island’s best agricultural and
fishing sites, as well as causing serious environmental
and noise pollution. The bases have resulted
in high crime rates, and a disturbing level of
sexual violence, as Suzuyo Takasato of Okinawa
Women Act Against Military Violence, explains:

Okinawa is a place where the armed forces have
learnt how to kill and hurt people in close proximity
to the local population for more than 60 years.
This situation breeds a structural violence, rather
than one that can be understood simply in terms of
the crimes of individual soldiers.

When a 12-year-old girl was raped by three US
soldiers in September 1995, an infamous case, the
shock was too enormous for society to remain
silent. But there is a long history of violence and
harassment on Okinawa derived from the presence
of the US bases.

In the post-war period, including after the Battle
of Okinawa and during the Korean War, the whole
of Okinawa turned into a land without law. US soldiers
raped women, threatening them at gunpoint
in crop fields and on the streets, and even abducting
them in front of their families. Many unwanted
and forced pregnancies resulted as female
Okinawans of all ages were targeted. The victims of
sexual violence on the island included a nine-month
old baby in 1949 and a little girl of six years old,
who was raped and killed in 1955.

“During the Vietnam War, the terrible violence
committed by US soldiers, operating in an extremely
unstable and frantic psychological condition was
also directed towards women working in areas surrounding
the US bases. At that time, two to four
people were strangled to death each year, and
many women in the area lived in fear of this fate.

Okinawa reverted to Japanese administration in
1972 but the violence continued, and even became
more chronic. There were a number of rapes and
attempted rapes, as well as sexual abuse in public
areas and even a case where a private house was
invaded. The victims included a 10 year-old girl and
a 14 year-old girl.

When the 1995 rape case of a girl happened, I
was hosting a workshop with other Okinawan
women at the Fourth World Conference on
Women in Beijing on the topic of ‘Military
Violence against Women in Okinawa’. When we
returned home and learnt more about the case,
we decided to break the silence that was a supplement
to the violence. We established ‘Okinawa
Women Act against Military Violence’, an association
to stop military power and violence. At the
same time, we opened the ‘Rape Emergency
Intervention Counseling Centre – Okinawa’, which
offers supports to the victims of sexual violence.
We made a chronology of sex crimes against
women by US soldiers in the post-war period,
which shed light on the previously unknown level
of this violence. We also organised a ‘Peace
Caravan to the USA’ in 1996 and 1998 to make US
citizens aware of the realities of their soldiers’
activities and discuss with them. In 1997, we
formed the ‘East Asia-US-Puerto Rico Women’s
Network Against Militarism’ together with women
from the Philippines, Korea, the USA and Puerto
Rico, where we share our experiences on the negative
impacts of the bases to women, children and
environment, learn collectively from our own activities,
and support each other. In Okinawa itself, 34
organisations came together in 1999 to launch the
‘Okinawa Citizens’ Network’, of which I am one of
the coordinators.

The bases remain, however, and a new ‘floating’
facility is being constructed in Henoko Bay, also in
Okinawa province, as a replacement for the dangerous
Futenma base. A citizens’ referendum
showed a clear ‘no’ to this new base, while various
citizens’ groups engaged in resistance actions on
the sea for more than 600 days, forcing construction
plans to stop. It was the victory of the power
of hope: believing in life, peace and co-existence.