The Genius Masterminds
19-02-2006, 00:28
TOKYO — 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 remain 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 to 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.
"I knew they weren't going to help me. I wanted to pick up the phone inside the police office and call the police to ask them to come and get me out of there," she said.
A Japanese woman who was raped in Tokyo in 2002 by a man she did not know said she also went through what is often called a "second rape" by the police.
Chided by police over way she dressed
She said a male police officer told her she should not be dressed in a way that stimulates men, while a female officer tried to convince her to give up pursuing the case because the most she would get out of it is a two-year jail term for the assailant.
"They don't consider us as victims. It seems they look at it like, 'Oh well, you just had sexual intercourse.' They don't seem to understand the seriousness of this type of crime," said the woman, who ended up not pressing charges.
She said although the female officer was nicer in terms of communicating with her, she felt she was under pressure from her male superiors to try not to make a big deal out of the situation.
"It would probably be better if there are more female police officers in senior positions who can play proactive roles in these cases," the woman said.
The National Police Agency has drawn up policies for victim support, including efforts to help and to lessen the psychological burden on victims of sexual crimes, and has set up a victim support office in each prefectural police force.
But it was only about 10 years ago that the Japanese police clearly put forward victim-sensitive policies, and the idea has yet to spread and seep into the minds and mentality of each police officer.
"Police probes have traditionally been centered on conducting investigations to find the culprit, so officers may not necessarily be used to paying attention to the victim's situation," said Nobuho Tomita, professor of criminology and victimology at Tokiwa University.
"But the situation is gradually getting better and the police are becoming more flexible," Tomita said, while noting the victim support office will probably respond better to victims' needs than officers on duty at police stations at this stage.
Wendy emphasized the importance for the various sectors involved in handling cases such as hers — governments, police, hospitals and courts — to cooperate with each other and come up with a protocol on how to resolve the situation.
"It's not anything that I would want anyone to ever have to go through. It's like a domino effect — it affects your family, your friends, your relationship with people, the whole society is damaged," she said.
"The U.S. government says it has a zero tolerance policy, but there have been numerous crimes against people in Japan in the past months and numerous cases that are unresolved such as mine. The U.S. government should not let their employees evade the consequences of their crimes," she said.
Wendy pledged to keep fighting until she can find justice and expressed hope that more people will become concerned with situations like hers because "the next victim could be you or your sister or your mother or someone you know."
Article - http://www.crisscross.com/jp/news/364204
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Thoughts - Can't they do DNA tests and find out? I don't think they said in the article if she got pregnant or not.
Horrible.
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 remain 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 to 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.
"I knew they weren't going to help me. I wanted to pick up the phone inside the police office and call the police to ask them to come and get me out of there," she said.
A Japanese woman who was raped in Tokyo in 2002 by a man she did not know said she also went through what is often called a "second rape" by the police.
Chided by police over way she dressed
She said a male police officer told her she should not be dressed in a way that stimulates men, while a female officer tried to convince her to give up pursuing the case because the most she would get out of it is a two-year jail term for the assailant.
"They don't consider us as victims. It seems they look at it like, 'Oh well, you just had sexual intercourse.' They don't seem to understand the seriousness of this type of crime," said the woman, who ended up not pressing charges.
She said although the female officer was nicer in terms of communicating with her, she felt she was under pressure from her male superiors to try not to make a big deal out of the situation.
"It would probably be better if there are more female police officers in senior positions who can play proactive roles in these cases," the woman said.
The National Police Agency has drawn up policies for victim support, including efforts to help and to lessen the psychological burden on victims of sexual crimes, and has set up a victim support office in each prefectural police force.
But it was only about 10 years ago that the Japanese police clearly put forward victim-sensitive policies, and the idea has yet to spread and seep into the minds and mentality of each police officer.
"Police probes have traditionally been centered on conducting investigations to find the culprit, so officers may not necessarily be used to paying attention to the victim's situation," said Nobuho Tomita, professor of criminology and victimology at Tokiwa University.
"But the situation is gradually getting better and the police are becoming more flexible," Tomita said, while noting the victim support office will probably respond better to victims' needs than officers on duty at police stations at this stage.
Wendy emphasized the importance for the various sectors involved in handling cases such as hers — governments, police, hospitals and courts — to cooperate with each other and come up with a protocol on how to resolve the situation.
"It's not anything that I would want anyone to ever have to go through. It's like a domino effect — it affects your family, your friends, your relationship with people, the whole society is damaged," she said.
"The U.S. government says it has a zero tolerance policy, but there have been numerous crimes against people in Japan in the past months and numerous cases that are unresolved such as mine. The U.S. government should not let their employees evade the consequences of their crimes," she said.
Wendy pledged to keep fighting until she can find justice and expressed hope that more people will become concerned with situations like hers because "the next victim could be you or your sister or your mother or someone you know."
Article - http://www.crisscross.com/jp/news/364204
--
Thoughts - Can't they do DNA tests and find out? I don't think they said in the article if she got pregnant or not.
Horrible.