The Ministry of Defense offers an annual online module on general harassment.
Tokyo:
As Japan embarks on a massive military buildup, it is struggling to fill its ranks with the women its forces need and its policymakers have committed to recruiting.
Following a wave of sexual harassment cases, the number of women applying to join the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) declined by 12 percent in the year ending March 2023, after several years of steady growth. Some victims said an ingrained culture of harassment could deter women from applying.
But nine months after the Ministry of Defense committed to taking drastic action, it has no plans to take action on a key recommendation issued by an independent panel of experts – the implementation of a national system to review anti-aircraft training standards. harassment – according to two ministry officials responsible. for training.
The government-appointed panel identified in a report published in August that superficial harassment education by military personnel – which made only limited mention of sexual harassment – and the lack of centralized oversight of such training were factors contributing to cultural problems within the institution. .
The panel’s head, Makoto Tadaki, said some training sessions – one of which Reuters attended – were at odds with the gravity of the situation.
A soldier who is suing the government over an alleged incident of sexual harassment also said in an interview that the education she received over the past 10 years was ineffective.
Calls to eradicate harassment and increase the number of women in the military come as an aging Japan faces growing threats from China, North Korea and Russia and navigates the heavy legacy of its wartime past.
Women make up just 9% of military personnel in Japan, compared with 17% in the United States, Tokyo’s main security ally.
The SDF referred Reuters’ questions to the Defense Ministry, which said in an email response that harassment “should never be allowed as it destroys mutual trust between the military and undermines its strength.”
The ministry said it had organized lectures on harassment prevention given by external experts since 2023, made the sessions more discussion-based and planned to invite experts to review their training this year.
It did not respond to questions about whether it would implement the panel’s recommendation to centralize oversight of training.
After former soldier Rina Gonoi went public with allegations of sexual assault in 2022, the Ministry of Defense carried out research that year that revealed more than 170 alleged incidents of sexual harassment in the SDF.
Another alleged victim was an Okinawa-based service member who accused a veteran of making lewd comments about her in 2013. She was then publicly named in harassment training materials distributed to her colleagues in 2014, she told Reuters. The alleged perpetrator of the crime was not identified in the materials.
Reuters does not name alleged victims of sexual harassment. Her claims were corroborated by documents from the lawsuit she filed last year after claiming to have exhausted an internal complaints process.
HAPPEN TRAINING
The Ministry of Defense offers an annual online module on general harassment. It also provides training materials to officers for in-person sessions, but does not offer training on harassment education and does not monitor how or when officers conduct harassment training, the two defense officials said.
Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, justified the existing system as offering flexibility to commanders.
The six experts concluded in their analysis that existing training amounted to “generic and superficial statements” that were “not effective in helping people apply training in the real world”.
In April, Reuters participated in a harassment prevention course taught by an external instructor to more than 100 mid-ranking military officers at a base outside Tokyo.
Instructor Keiko Yoshimoto presented harassment as a communication issue and focused discussions on generational differences and how they influenced preferences for types of cars and flavors of French fries.
“Generational differences make it difficult for people to communicate,” she said, adding that people must understand the basics of communication before they can address specific details about sexual harassment.
Law professor Tadaki, who separately witnessed part of Yoshimoto’s session, said it “didn’t seem like the kind of training you would expect in a scenario with so many harassment cases coming out.”
He added that it would likely take more time to increase oversight over the quality of training.
Two months after the panel released its report, local media reported that in 2022, a sailor had been ordered, against her will, to meet with a superior she accused of sexual harassment. She later left the SDF.
Gonoi and the Okinawa-based military criticized the system as inadequate.
“People would say ‘everyone tolerates this type of behavior, it was normal in our time’ – but these issues are being passed on to my generation because nothing was done to stop it,” the soldier told Reuters in March.
She added that the harassment training she has received since then was often poorly conducted and that more centralized oversight was needed: “Rather than trying to defend a position on sexual harassment, (officers) choose materials that are easy to teach, something that fits into the time they have.”
FEAR OF COMPLAINTS
Ministry of Defense officials stated that training on sexual harassment largely occurs as part of a broader anti-harassment curriculum. In the two-hour training session attended by Reuters, around two minutes were dedicated to sexual harassment.
When Reuters asked about incidents of sexual harassment during interviews with employees as well as two uniformed officers, they responded by talking about general harassment.
Officials said it was challenging to provide standardized training on harassment because military service members in high-stress environments may give orders in a direct manner, which is unusual in other circumstances.
Both officers said there were concerns within the military that excessive focus on harassment could create operational problems and one suggested it could lead to unfair complaints.
The Ministry of Defense said in a statement that it does not tolerate abuse and that its training aims to ensure that commanders do not “hesitate to give the necessary guidance on the job because they are concerned about harassment”.
Tadaki, the professor, said Japan could learn from other militaries.
“The US, UK and France have a much clearer focus on preventing harassment from its root causes, so their prevention program is structured around improving the internal climate and culture of their organization,” he said he.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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