Three former soldiers from Japan were found guilty of sexually assaulting a female coworker.
The important decision was made after Rina Gonoi, who is 24 years old, shared her story on YouTube in 2022. This story caused a lot of people to be upset and caught the attention of the world.
The Fukushima prosecutors charged the three men in March after changing their minds.
Speaking up against sexual violence in very traditional Japan is uncommon and still considered a forbidden topic.
Many similar events are not reported, and people have only started paying attention to this issue in recent years after hearing about well-known cases like Ms. Gonoi, Shiori Ito’s trial, and the Johnny Kitagawa scandal.
The decision today shows that what they did was wrong, so I want them to admit it and think about what they did. “I hope this decision will help victims to be brave and speak up,” Ms. Ganoi said to the reporters after leaving the courtroom.
This is the first important decision on sexual assault in Japan since June when the country changed its laws on sex crimes. The changes included redefining rape and raising the age when people can give consent for sexual activity.
It happened because people worked for a long time to change things after some court decisions let attackers go free. Activists say the old laws often stopped survivors from speaking up.
Kanae Doi, who works for Human Rights Watch in Japan, said that the ruling today is good news. It shows that survivors of sexual violence in Japan will be listened to, and that people who hurt their rights can be held accountable. While there are still things to fix in society, this ruling is a positive step.
A survey by the government in 2021 found that 6% of people who were attacked went to the police. Nearly half of the women said they didn’t go because they felt too embarrassed.
In August 2021, three men held Ms. Gonoi down on a bed, opened her legs forcefully, and pressed their private areas against her repeatedly.
She told the BBC that about 12 other coworkers were there, but nobody stopped the three people. Many were laughing.
Ms Gonoi told her bosses about what happened, but they didn’t believe her because she couldn’t find anyone who saw it.
Later, the three men were accused of touching someone in a bad way by the Ground Self-Defence Force (GSDF) police, but the case was not pursued because there wasn’t enough proof. Ms Gonoi finally quit the army.
Last year, a lot of people watched her YouTube video and she got over 100,000 people to sign a petition asking the defense ministry to look into what happened to her. The ministry said sorry to her and started a special investigation. They found over 100 other complaints of harassment in the ministry.
However, along with the attention also came a lot of mean comments and even people threatening to harm or kill them online.
“Some people online said I was ugly. others asked if I was really a man,” she told the BBC. “When I was asking people to sign a petition, I received a scary email saying, ‘I will hurt you if you continue'”
She said that she was experiencing sexual harassment every day even before the incident happened. Her coworkers would say things about her body and touch her inappropriately while others looked on.
Ms Gonoi is suing the five people who hurt her and the government of Japan. She is asking for 5. 5 million yen (about $40,000 or £32,000) from the men for making her feel very upset, and 2 million yen from the government for not stopping the abuse.
In June, the government changed the sex crime laws in a big way. They expanded the definition of rape to include any non-consensual sexual intercourse, not just when force is used. This puts Japan in line with other countries’ laws. The legal age when someone can agree to have sex was changed from 13 to 16.
Also, the new laws clearly explain eight situations where a victim may find it hard to “say no” to sex.
These situations can happen when a person is drunk or on drugs, or when they are being hurt or threatened, or when they are really scared or surprised. Another situation shows someone using their power to harm others, and the person being hurt is afraid of what will happen if they say no.
Ms Gonoi was named as one of the inspiring and influential women on the BBC 100 Women list for 2023, and she was also included on the TIME100 Next 2023 List.