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In March of this year, a man stationed at Kadena Airbase in Okinawa was indicted for the kidnapping and sexual assault in December 2023 of a girl under 16. Only when it was reported in the local media on June 25 did the Japanese government in Tokyo inform the Okinawa Prefectural Government of the indictment. It was also revealed that a Marine was charged with attempting to sexually assault a woman in May. The delayed reporting of these cases is widely viewed in Okinawa as a Japanese government cover-up.
Sexual assaults have plagued Okinawa ever since U.S. forces first arrived there in 1945. According to Okinawa Women Act against Military Violence (2023), there have been 655 rapes, attempted rapes, and attempted kidnappings. These figures are just the tip of the iceberg; sexual violence is always under-reported. With U.S. and Japanese courts hardly delivering any justice for the victims, whose families and communities are hosting the bases purportedly for the protection of people throughout Japan, these assaults have sparked some of the largest demonstrations and sustained grassroots action against U.S. bases. In the aftermath of the 1945 battle, American soldiers kidnapped women and girls from refugee camps and raped them. A five-year-old was raped and murdered in 1955. In recent decades Okinawans have organized huge anti-base rallies, such as after the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl in 1995, and after the rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman in 2016.
Okinawa reverted from twenty-seven years of U.S. military occupation to Japanese administration in 1972, but the bases still occupy large areas of land, with U.S. forces numbering some 26,000. Okinawans are burdened with 70% of the total U.S. military presence in Japan. Yet their island chain accounts for only 0.6% of the nation's total land area and about one percent of Japan’s population. In addition to sexual assaults, the bases bring noise from military airfields that interrupt classes in schools and disturb the sleep of local residents. Leakage of PFAS "forever" chemicals poison the drinking water. Aircraft crashes and drunk-driving kill local residents.
We, the Okinawa Interest Group, invite you to join us on the 4th of October (the 5th in Japan) with two featured guest speakers, Suzuyo Takazato and Alexis Dudden.
Suzuyo Takazato, Co-chair of Okinawa Women Act against Military Violence and a former member of the Naha city council, helped establish a rape crisis center for the victims of military sexual violence and has worked for peace by resisting the militarization of Okinawa.
Alexis Dudden, Professor of History at the University of Connecticut and Visiting Professor of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore, helped organize a 2015 letter signed by a group of American academics condemning Japan’s denial of the history of its military sex slavery. A recent piece of hers, “Okinawans must not be overlooked in new US–Japan counter-crime forum”, has been published in the East Asia Forum.
Steve Rabson, a member of the Okinawa Interest Group and professor emeritus of Brown University will comment on the guest speakers’ talks.
As with our previous “open press conference,” we will set aside time for participants to ask questions to our two speakers. Let’s gather online to study and benefit from the insightful analysis of two leading feminists on topics such as the patriarchal values that run deep in the military community of the U.S. bases in Okinawa.
