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http://www.wunrn.com

 

European Center for Constitutional & Human Rights - ECCHR

 

http://www.ecchr.de/index.php/philippines.html

 

Our partner organization in the Philippines, CenterLaw, and the Malaya Lolas, an organization for survivors, approached us to suggest that we collaborate on the issue. In March of this year, during our workshops in Manila, ECCHR and CenterLaw staff met in order to develop new strategies. This cooperation is of great interest to ECCHR, since the issue of sexualized violence represents the focus of our gender work and also because the direct contact with affected individuals who are actively working on the issue on the ground is particularly important to us.

CenterLaw currently has an appeal pending before the Philippine courts requesting the reconsideration of a case taken by survivors that had been rejected by the Philippine Supreme Court in 2010. Politically, one complicating factor is the Peace Treaty of 1951, which waived all claims to compensation on the part of the Philippines.

In order to lend legal support to the survivors of the system of forced prostitution, ECCHR submit a petition to the Philippine Supreme Court in August 2013 as an additional party to the proceedings. The petition points out that at the time of Second World War, the systematic wartime enslavement of women represented a breach of international law and that the survivors now have a right to individual compensation.

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23 August 2013 - The European Center for Constitutional & Human Rights (ECCHR) together with the Philippine Center for International Law (CenterLaw) submitted a petition to the Philippine Supreme Court. ECCHR is calling for individual compensation to be provided to Philippine survivors of sexual violence (so-called “comfort women”) during the Second World War.

Since 2004 CenterLaw has represented 70 members of the Malaya Lolas organization, a survivors organization. The Malaya Lolas are calling on the Philippine government to support their compensation claim against Japan. During the Japanese occupation, Japanese military leadership ordered the establishment of a system of forced prostitution – or “comfort stations” – in the Philippines. In April 2010, the Philippine Supreme Court turned down the claimants’ appeal.

In the petition, submitted in relation to a new hearing on the case, ECCHR stresses that already at the time of the Second World War, the systematic wartime enslavement of women constituted a violation of international law and that the survivors have a right to individual compensation. The petition is supported by international legal experts including Theo van Boven, Patricia Viseur Sellers, Andreas Fischer-Lescano and Ustinia Dolgopol.

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