FUKUSHIMA: A court in Japan found on Tuesday (Dec 12) three ex-soldiers guilty of sexually assaulting a female colleague and gave them suspended jail terms, bringing to a close a rare case for a country where victims rarely come forward to speak out against abuse.
The court in Fukushima sentenced Shutaro Shibuya, Akito Sekine and Yusuke Kimezawa to two years in prison, but suspended for four years, for their “forced indecency” on Rina Gonoi during a military drill in 2021.
In a socially conservative country where the #MeToo movement failed to gain much ground, Gonoi, 24, took to YouTube last year to share her account of the assault after an internal military probe into it was dropped for lack of evidence.
The public attention from the viral video and a petition signed by more than 100,000 people forced the defence ministry to acknowledge the assault and apologise.
This March, prosecutors reversed an earlier decision and charged the three men, who have been dismissed from the military.
Gonoi, who was in court on Tuesday for the verdict, told AFP in an interview in February that her decision to go public was “desperate rather than brave”.
She said that after fulfilling a childhood dream and enlisting in 2020, she experienced daily harassment.
“When walking down the hallway, someone slaps you on your hip, or holds you from behind,” she told AFP.
“I was kissed on the cheek, and my breasts were grabbed.”
Then, during a drill in 2021, she says three colleagues pressed her to the ground, forced apart her legs and each repeatedly pressed their crotches against her while others watched and laughed.
Source: CNA
