A court in Japan has found three former soldiers guilty of sexually assaulting a female colleague, in a case that has broken taboos and brought the issue of sexual violence to the forefront in the male-dominated society.
The court in Fukushima on Tuesday sentenced the three men — Shutaro Shibuya, Akito Sekine and Yusuke Kimezawa — to two-year suspended jail terms for the 2021 assault of soldier Rina Gonoi.
The court in Fukushima on Tuesday sentenced the three men — Shutaro Shibuya, Akito Sekine and Yusuke Kimezawa — to two-year suspended jail terms for the 2021 assault of soldier Rina Gonoi.
Gonoi, 24, drew national and global attention when she took to YouTube in 2022 to share her account after an internal military investigation was dropped.
The public attention from the viral video and a petition signed by more than 100,000 people forced the Ministry of Defence to acknowledge the assault, apologise, and dismiss five of the men involved.
This March, prosecutors reversed an earlier decision and charged three of the assailants with “forced indecency”.
Gonoi, who was in court for Tuesday’s verdict, said her decision to go public – rare in conservative Japan – was “desperate rather than brave”.
Original from www.aljazeera.com rnrn