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By JOEY NACALABAN
Correspondent

ORGANIZED “comfort women” during World War II expressed their outrage over President Duterte’s remarks that have been widely seen as degrading to women.

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Lila Pilipina said Duterte’s remarks encouraged state forces to violate international humanitarian law by joking about shooting the vaginas of female rebels to render them useless.

In a statement, Rechilda Extremadura, executive director of Lila Pilipina, said the statement reminds the grandmothers of the violence of World War II when women were knifed with bayonets in their vaginas by Japanese Imperial Army soldiers.

“Such atrocities, much like the military sexual slavery during World War II, are tools of war that aimed to disempower women. It is outrageous that at this day and age, the President himself would be mouthing such barbaric violation to women,” Extremadura said. “The historical violence done against the comfort women must always be remembered in order for us to be always on our guard against such crime to happen to another generation.”

Activists in the city were among those who took to the streets on Wednesday to say enough is enough of what they see as Duterte’s sexist remarks.

Amalin Baroma, spokesperson of Gabriela in northern Mindanao, said Duterte has caught the ire of many for his “loose remarks” that tend to objectify and degrade women.

Baroma also warned the Duterte  administration against violating the international laws on human rights, pointing out that the “order” for soldiers to shoot female communist rebels in their vaginas would be against what many nations have agreed on.

She said the Philippines  is one of the signatories to International Humanitarian Law.

Baroma said Duterte’s “malicious remarks openly perpetuates violence against women, and adds to the impunity of the government’s Armed Forces as it holds no one accountable” for such acts.

In Malacañang this Feb. 7, Duterte “ordered” soldiers to shoot female rebels in their private parts in order to make them “useless”.

Baroma’s group spearheaded the annual “One Billion Rising” on Wednesday at the Press Freedom Monument at the capitol grounds here which was part of a global campaign.

Demonstrators called on citizens “to rise against the intensifying dictatorship.”

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