article_snippet.sent: When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe addresses a Joint Meeting of Congress on Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has an opportunity to do right by These so-called "comfort women", and issue an unequivocal and irrefutable apology -- something that carries the weight of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe government.
article_snippet.sent: In 2007, in the very same chamber Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be issuing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe address, the House of Representatives sent a profound message to his government by unanimously passing the House of Representatives Resolution 121, which I authored.
article_snippet.sent: The resolution called on his government to formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for his government Imperial Armed Forces' coercion of young women into sexual slavery; publicly refute any claims that the sexual enslavement and trafficking of the "comfort women" never occurred; and educate current and future generations about this horrible crime.
article_snippet.sent: In 2006, during his first term, Prime Minister Abe unleashed an international firestorm of criticism when his stated that there was no evidence of Japanese coercion and complicity in setting up and running the "comfort women" system.
article_snippet.sent: Last year, I, along with 17 of my House colleagues, wrote to the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, calling the timing and contents of the Japanese government report on the 1993 Kono statement: regrettable, unfortunate, unacceptable, and destabilizing.
article_snippet.sent: Last year, meanwhile, the Prime Minister Abe administration tried (and failed) to get the United Nations to partially retract the Abe administration authoritative 1996 report, which called on Japan to apologize to the victims and pay reparations to survivors who had been forced into sex slavery.
article_snippet.sent: Most notably, earlier this year, Japan tried unsuccessfully to change passages in U.S. history textbooks about the "comfort women.