Fight Inside JSDF

Fukushima Regional Court sentenced on Tuesday two years in prison, suspended for four years, to three former members of Japan Self-Defense Force, who were indicted as having committed sexual assault on their former colleague and the plaintiff Rina Gonoi. The court found forced indecency of the three, regardless their intention. Although JSDF is taking measures not to make that kind of incident happen again, there are a number of unknown sufferers from sexual assaults or harassments in the organization. Gender makes a security problem for Self-Defense Force. 

According to the sentence, each of three defendants laid down Gonoi on the bed, forcibly spread her legs and pressed their bottom part of abdomen with clothes in the room of barracks in Hokkaido in August 2021. They were drinking alcohol with other colleagues.

Gonoi reported the offense of them to the police section in JSDF and the section sent the document to public prosecutors, but the prosecutors avoided indicting those three members with insufficient evidence.

 

Gonoi kept on appealing about the incident to the public with appearance to social networking services, and the Committee of Inquest of Prosecution in Koriyama decided in September 2022 that the drop of prosecution was unjust. Ministry of Defense made an inquiry on the issue and the related JSDF members apologized to her and were dismissed in disgrace.

 

In the court hearing, three defendants argued that their actions to Gonoi were performances to attract the people and they had no intention of sexual assault. However, the court judged that their actions were indecent enough to remind sexual acts, even if they had no intention. The sentence found that they treated Gonoi as a material, not human, ignoring her personality, even though they intended to attract their colleagues in the party.

 

The action of Gonoi revealed inappropriate stance of JSDF on harassment issues. In the report of special inquiry in JSDF in August, it received 1,325 cases of harassment. 850 cases among them where without any consultation with the assistant offices in JSDF. Main reason for not consulting was consideration of negative impact on the relationship with their colleagues.

 

In the press conference the day after the sentencing, Gonoi repeatedly described her action as “fight.” The fight was not right thing for her and she had hoped that her argument had been settled before it was publicized. If the trial were a fight, JSDF has lost a fight. Before dealing with security issues, with concern of uprising tensions in Indo-Pacific region by advance of China to South and East China Sea or missile and nuclear intimidation of North Korea, JSDF has to deal with a fight inside itself over treating its personnel as human.

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