A former servicemember of the Japanese Armed Forces filed a lawsuit Monday against the state and five of her former colleagues for sexually harassing her on a daily basis for nearly a year.
The woman, Rina Gonoi, served in a unit in Fukushima Prefecture and has filed the lawsuit at the Yokohama District Court, where she has asked to be compensated for damages suffered from the end of 2020 to mid-2021.
After leaving the Army in June 2022, Gonoi, 22, began spreading information about the case via the Internet and filed a petition with the Ministry of Defense to open an investigation. The Ministry in question confirmed his accusations and formally apologized to him last September.
The five military personnel involved were dismissed several months later, while a commander was suspended from employment and pay for six months for failing to act in a timely and appropriate manner, according to reports from the Kiodo news agency.
Now, Gonoi has said she has decided to file the lawsuit after some of the harassers downplayed what happened during a meeting at which she was present.
In mid-December, Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida, chief of the Ground Staff, told a news conference that he is seeking to «introduce persistent measures» to ensure that it does not happen again. «We take this very seriously and will establish an organizational culture that does not tolerate harassment,» he said at the time.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
