A group of 50 family members and descendants of wartime forced laborers in China filed a lawsuit against six companies on Wednesday, September 16, demanding compensation for their suffering during the Japanese occupation. 

In their lawsuit at a local court in Hebei, southwest of the capital, Beijing, the group is seeking around $55,000 in compensation for each member, along with an apology published in at least 10 Japanese and Chinese media outlets.

The plaintiffs accuse six Japanese firms of being beneficiaries of the forced labor, causing long-term pain, suffering, and the deaths of their family members, Kyodo News reported. 

According to Kyodo News, the six Japanese firms named in the lawsuit include construction firm Taisi Corp, mining firm Nittetsu Corp, and heavy industry manufacturer IHI Corp. 

Japan occupied large parts of China, the Korean Peninsula, and other parts of Southeast Asia at various times between the last decade of the 19th century to the end of the Second World War.

The Japanese military committed systemic torture, sexual exploitation, forced labor, and other cruelties against Chinese and other Asian peoples during the occupation, all which have been well documented.

Millions had to do forced labor in the territories occupied by Japan, including hundreds of thousands of Chinese people. Some Chinese forced laborers were also sent to Japan to work in mining and other industries. Thousands of these forced laborers were killed due to harsh working conditions and torture inflicted by their employers. 

Compensation and apology for crimes during occupation

The survivors of Japanese atrocities and their descendants have in different moments raised demands for compensation and apologies.

In 2014, a similar lawsuit was filed by hundreds of people in a Chinese court against Mitsubishi Materials Corp and others. The case ended in an out-of-court settlement, with Mitsubishi offering an apology and compensation to the plaintiffs.

In China, survivors cite their lack of faith in the Japanese system as the reason for filing the suit in a domestic court. 

Japanese courts have dismissed all such lawsuits. A 2007 Japanese Supreme Court’s judgment stated that all such claims were settled when Japan and China established their diplomatic relations in 1972.

However, China has maintained that the 1972 documents did not denounce an individual’s right to seek legal action. China has also often invoked Japan’s failure to acknowledge its repressive and atrocious colonial period and apologize to its victims in the region.

Reacting to the news on Wednesday, the official spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Guo Jiakun underlined that “forced recruitment and enslavement of laborers is one of the serious crimes committed by Japanese militarists during their foreign aggression and colonial rule.”

He urged “Japan to look history in the eye, reflect on past crimes, earnestly heed and respond to the just calls and legitimate claims of the people of victims countries in Asia, and properly resolve relevant issues left over from history with a responsible attitude.”

Forced disappearances have plagued Mexico for decades. In 2019, something remarkable happened: Twenty-one disappeared people were found, alive. They had been toiling in narco-slavery camps, an under-covered aspect of Mexico’s illicit drug trade. But there wasn’t a happy ending. (This story was originally published in Spanish by Quinto Elemento Lab):

Freedom had not been kind to the captives. Few had been able to regain even the wretched standard of living that had pushed them into the arms of the cartels in the first place. Many were scarred by paranoia, trapped in addiction or suffering mental illnesses. Some had been abandoned by their partners or families. More than one, we learned, died after being rescued, some by their own hand. We came to feel that these men had been triply betrayed: first by the narcos who had lured them into the mountains, then by the government that failed to look for them, and finally by a society that refused to welcome them back into its fold.

We are telling their stories not because we hope to secure justice, but simply to establish the truth. This was a modest ambition shared by one of our interlocutors, Andrés. He told us that many of the survivors’ accounts had been doubted. He’d even read criticisms on social media: That’s what they deserve for being shiftless and lazy. “Those people should try thinking before they speak, because they don’t know when they might suddenly find themselves in a similar situation,” Andrés said. “They might be lucky enough to be rescued, or unlucky enough to die out there. I decided to give this interview because this situation’s not going to change. In Mexico, there’s sexual slavery, human trafficking, forced labour. This didn’t start yesterday; it’s been going on for many years.”