Japan's biggest newspaper apologizes for using term 'sex slaves'

Japan's biggest newspaper apologizes for using term 'sex slaves'
(Image credit: Getty/Lintao Zhang)

In a big step backward, Japan's biggest newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, apologized for using the term "sex slaves" to describe, well, sex slaves who were forced to work in brothels that served the Japanese military during World War II. In its apology, the paper used the preferred term of Japanese apologists — "comfort women" — to describe the thousands of foreign victims who were subjected to Japan's wartime atrocities.

The Japan News, Yomiuri's English language edition, said it "apologizes for having used these misleading expressions and will add a note stating that they were inappropriate to all the articles in question in our database."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Ryu Spaeth

Ryu Spaeth is deputy editor at TheWeek.com. Follow him on Twitter.