Chinese workers win compensation suit
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-03-26 23:30

The Japanese Government and a private firm that forced a group of Chinese to work during World War II will pay 8 million Japanese yen (US$75,000) in compensation for each of the 12 Chinese labourers, Japan's Niigata District Court announced in a landmark ruling on Thursday.

This is the first time a Japanese court has laid blame on the government for its role in the kidnapping of tens of thousands of Chinese, Koreans and people from other Asian countries forced to work in Japan, the Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

About 40,000 Chinese labourers were forced to work in 135 workplaces for 35 corporations in Japan during World War II. Many of them never returned to China.

The 10 Chinese labourers and relatives of two deceased workers lodged the lawsuit recently, demanding the Japanese Government and Rinko Corp pay 270 million in compensation.

Before the court handed down its verdict, the Japanese Government and the private firm had said that according to Japanese laws, Chinese labourers had lost their right to file lawsuits since too much time had elapsed since the events. But the court ruled these actions were illegal and that the government and the company needed to compensate the victims.

The 12 Chinese labourers were forcibly taken to Japan in 1944 to work at a port in Niigata and were forced to carry coal and undertake other hard labour, were subjected to abuse and receive no payment. Zhang Wenbin, one of the 12, was mistaken as a spy, was imprisoned at the Hiroshima Prison and died when the atom bomb hit the city. The other labourers have suffered both physically and mentally since their return to China.

Early this week, compensation requests from 70 other Chinese labourers, who were forcibly taken to Hokkaido, Japan, to work for six Japanese companies, were rejected by Japan's Sapporo District Court since it said too much time had elapsed.

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