Twenty years ago, in December 2000, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (the IMTFE, also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal or the Tokyo Trial), was “reopened” in Tokyo to address unfinished business: the crime of holding women as sex slaves for the Japanese imperial army. The women's tribunal was at once the culmination and launch of a renewed effort by international civil society to address war crimes that fester to this day. Norma Field and Watanabe Mina reflect on that occasion and urge readers to view the documentary record of that historic event, Breaking the History of Silence, easily accessed online until December 2021.
