FOCUS: Rape victim seeks better attitude from Japan’s police, U.S. military
TOKYO, Feb. 14 Kyodo
In the early hours of an April morning in 2002, Wendy (not her real name) was raped by a U.S. serviceman inside her van at a parking lot in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.
After an insufficient response from the Japanese police, realizing there was no 24-hour rape crisis center in Japan and seeing that both Japanese prosecutors and the U.S. Navy had decided not to pursue charges against the suspect, she became determined to stand up and seek change so that future victims would not have to go through what she did.
In a civil lawsuit she filed to seek damages from the perpetrator, who was a crew member of the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, the Tokyo District Court recognized in November 2004 that the defendant raped her and ordered him to pay her 3 million yen.
But Wendy has no way of claiming the payment from the man, as he left Japan during the course of the trial, was released from the U.S. military and his whereabouts remains unknown.
Her fight has been a difficult one, as her mostly single-handed efforts have often brought her up against a wall of bureaucracy in both Japan and the United States. Being an Australian citizen residing in Japan has also complicated things.
”There are three countries involved, but who will help me?” said Wendy, who has recently written to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Rear Adm. James Kelly, the commander of the U.S. Naval Forces in Japan, seeking prompt and proper investigations into her case.
She also wrote to Australian Prime Minister John Howard, asking for her government’s assistance in facilitating such investigations. But she had not received any substantive responses from any party as of Sunday.
”How many more people have to be murdered and raped before someone does something?” Wendy said, referring to continued crimes and accidents involving U.S. military personnel in Japan, including the Jan. 3 murder-robbery of a Japanese woman in Yokosuka in which a U.S. Navy sailor has been indicted by Japanese prosecutors.
”The American military is supposed to be here to protect us, but they’re obviously not protecting us,” she said.
Masahiko Goto, a lawyer in Yokosuka, said one of the difficulties in resolving cases such as Wendy’s is the existence of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement which prevents Japanese authorities from having sole jurisdiction over the cases.
”The problem is that we have a situation in which the jurisdiction and the right to investigate lie both on the Japanese and American sides, creating a vacuum in which some victims cannot get legal redress,” Goto said.
”Once they (the perpetrators) escape into the U.S. bases, it becomes very difficult for the Japanese police to investigate, and if they return to the United States it becomes even more difficult, so the victims often have to concede,” he said.
The Public Affairs Office of the commander of the U.S. Naval Forces in Japan confirmed that the sailor in Wendy’s case was released from the navy in October 2002 and said the incident has been concluded as Japanese authorities decided not to indict him and the U.S. Navy also determined a court-martial was not necessary.
The office declined to comment on the civil court case, saying it is a private matter between the plaintiff and the defendant.
Dorothy Mackey, a former U.S. Air Force captain and commander who is also a survivor of multiple rape and abuse by fellow U.S. military personnel, said it is a ‘’standard operating procedure” for the U.S. government and military ”to hide, destroy or ignore evidence and protect its own military criminal members.”
She also expressed disappointment with the Japanese prosecutors’ decision not to indict the suspect in Wendy’s case, saying their actions ”have resulted in leaving every person in Japan open to brutal attack” by members of the U.S. military.
Mackey, who runs a group in the United States called Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel, warned that rapists who go unpunished are likely to commit similar crimes again.
Wendy, who is in her 40s and has lived in Japan for more than 20 years, is also hoping to have the Japanese laws and systems revised so that the police will deal properly with rape victims, including ensuring that they receive immediate medical attention.
When she went to the police in Yokosuka just after she was sexually assaulted, she wanted to go to a hospital immediately to be examined and treated for the injuries and bruises she had sustained over her body.
But she said the Japanese police told her she had to go and look for the perpetrator and took her back to the parking lot where they had her explain everything that happened and asked her to reenact the crime. When she refused, they had a police officer play her part as she reluctantly directed.