Rina Gonoi, a former female member of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces who reported sexual harassment in the military with real name

The 22-year-old was born in Rina Gonoi (五ノイ Rina) in Higashi Matsushima City, Miyagi Prefecture. She was in the fourth grade of elementary school when the Great East Japan Earthquake hit. At that time, she and her classmates escaped the tsunami at school successfully, and it took a week before she was reunited with her family. However, part of the first floor of the house was washed away by the tsunami, so he and his family had to evacuate in a community hall similar to a community activity center.

When Gonoi was evacuating in the public hall, he met a very kind female self-defense officer who not only helped everyone build a bathroom, but also played with her. Gonoi, who was already practicing judo, told the female self-defense officer that she wanted to become a judo Olympian when she grew up, and received strong support from the female self-defense officer. After the evacuation life ended, Wuzhijing also continued to contact the female self-defense officer. Unconsciously, the female self-defense officer became a role model in Wuzhijing's heart, making her decide to embark on the path of a female self-defense officer and give up her original examination. After attending university, he decided to join the judo club of the Sports School of the Self-Defense Forces to start a new life as an athlete and a self-defense officer.

Join the Ground Self-Defense Force

In April 2020, Gonoi officially joined the Ground Self-Defense Force.

Subsequently, the name of the squadron to which Five Noi was assigned came out, and it was a squadron in the Tohoku region. Among the 58 members of the team, there are 5 women, but 1 is on maternity leave, so there are actually only 4 girls in the squadron.

As soon as the list came out, a senior told her: "The situation of sexual harassment and power harassment in that squadron is very serious, you have to be careful." In fact, after Gonoi entered the squadron, the female self-defense team in the same room also warned her: " Prepare to be sexually harassed!"

How often was sexual harassment on this squadron? Gonoi said that when he was on duty, a male team member would suddenly say, "Let's compete in judo!" and he would suddenly hug him from behind and swing his waist from behind. Pictures like this, in the corridors inside the Self-Defense Forces, are everyday scenery.

Event 1: Mountain training camp in June

But when the whole situation went to the mountain for training, the situation of sexual harassment in the squadron deteriorated rapidly.

On June 24, 2021, when he entered the mountain area for training, the newcomer Wu Noi was in charge of preparing dinner and snacks. Originally, a tent could only be used by 2-3 people. At the evening reception, the tent was crowded with far more people than the limit of the number of people in the tent. At most, it could be squeezed to 5-6 people. Five Wells, who was in charge of preparing food near the tent, was called into the tent and was attacked on the chest, kissed by other male self-defense team members, and even forced to touch the male self-defense team's lower body through his underwear.

Five Wells, who found that he could not escape the tent alone, passed on LINE to ask for help from the female self-defense team members who were in other tents at the time. But the female self-defense did not go to Five Wells tent to save her because she had experienced the same thing as Five Wells when she attended the tent reception the day before. At that time, there were also male self-defense team members who threatened her. If she encountered her again the next day, she would be asked to "make up your mind". So when the female self-defense team member received the message from Five Wells, she knew at first sight that something was wrong, but she did not dare to save Five Wells, for fear that if she went, she would be the next victim. And the female self-defense team left the Self-Defense Force not long after.

It's been like this since the first appearance of female self-defense personnel

The online media " AREA dot. " under the "Asahi Shimbun" found the female self-defense team member and learned that she was also carried around by other male self-defense team members almost every day, and she had also seen the scene of the sexual harassment of Five Noi. She told "AREA dot." that there have been female self-defense players in this squadron since 2018, and the entire squadron has also received negative reviews of "serious sexual harassment" since then. The perpetrators of the sexual harassment group on the team were mainly male self-defense players in the second half of their 20s, but because of the relationship between the upper and lower classes on the team, she had no way to stop these people, and could only watch these things happen.

Witch hunt started despite anonymous notification

However, the case of Five Wells on June 24 was different. Someone anonymously reported the incident to the squadron leader. Everyone quickly found out on the team "who is the prisoner who notified the superior". As the victim of the incident, Five Wells quickly became the target of everyone's attack. Because someone reported the incident, both the perpetrator and the victim were called to report the incident. The perpetrator's statement is: "This is not sexual harassment, it's just a part of communication." As for Wuzhijing, he was worried about making things worse, so he couldn't continue to stay in the Self-Defense Forces, and chose to hide the truth and only tell the Master Chief (Cao Chang) : "Nothing, it's okay."

But the sexual harassment incidents on the team will not end because of this. Sexual harassment is the daily routine of the entire squadron. Gonoi chose to endure, but two months later, something she could no longer endure happened.

Event 2: Early withdrawal from the off-site training in August

On August 3, 2021, Five Noi's squadron went to a place to train for a month. On the first day of arriving at the training site, Five Wells, who was preparing dinner, was called by the male self-defense team again, "Don't worry about cooking, come and greet us." He was forced to sit in the middle of a dozen or so male self-defense team members.

Demonstrate fighting skills into an obscene scene

At this time, Cao E (equivalent to sergeant) and Cao Y (equivalent to sergeant) were chatting about fighting skills, Cao S (equivalent to corporal) just walked into the room, Cao E and Cao Y ordered three Cao S, hold the head of the five wells and trip her up. Sansao S really did that, holding Five Wells' neck with both hands and tripping Five Wells on the bed. Before it was over, Sancao S opened Wuzhijing's legs, swinging his waist against Wuzhijing's pussy, and made a deliberate panting sound of "ah~ah~". The male self-defense team members who saw this scene at the scene laughed out loud.

It's not just San Cao S, there are two male self-defense team members who did exactly the same thing to Five Wells. Five Wells wanted to resist, but the current posture and strength were completely unable to overturn them. The third R, who did the same thing to Five Wells, knew that Five Wells wanted to resist, because he said, "I didn't expect Five Wells to be so powerful."

That night, although the topic was changed to something else, after a while, Yi Cao E talked about fighting skills again: "Well, how do you fix your head and turn people over?" San Cao S Immediately, he did the same thing to Five Wells and said to Five Wells, "Don't tell other people", clearly knowing that it was wrong to do so.

The signs are not right, I decided to retire early

This incident made Wuzhijing realize that the training ground was an environment where there was no way to escape quickly, and she wanted to quit the training camp when she couldn't take it any longer. Originally, the seniors of the female self-defense team sided with Five Wells, but when the male squadron leader said "training is training" and refused to let Five Wells retire from training, the female self-defense team also changed his tune. The last experience made Wuzhijing realize that if she said she would withdraw from training on the grounds of sexual harassment, something like June would probably happen again, so she changed her mind and said that her mother was ill and she had to go back to her hometown to successfully withdraw from training. .

After that, Five Wells was diagnosed with adjustment disorder by a doctor and took a leave of absence from work at home. At the same time, Gonoi also reported that he had been sexually harassed to the "Section 1" of the General Affairs and Personnel Division of the Self-Defense Forces, but was dismissed as "not collecting on-site testimony". Gonoi then informed the guards within the Self-Defense Force that he was a victim of forced indecency. Just like Shiori Ito's experience with the media when she complained about Yamaguchi Keiyuki, Gonoi was asked by the police to use a doll to reproduce the scene at that time.

However, Gonoi has already done so much burden of proof. On May 31 this year, the Prosecutor's Office decided not to prosecute, on the grounds that the prosecutor visited a number of self-defense officers, and all of them said that "at that time only the Five Wells was brought down, and there was no obscene behavior such as waving the waist," so all the staff did not prosecute.

On June 7, Five Wells lodged a dissatisfaction with the inspection and review committee, and is still awaiting the results of the review.

Get out of negative emotions and sue the Self-Defense Forces with real names

Recalling this experience, Gonoi told the online media "AREA dot." under the "Asahi Shimbun" that sexual harassment is always happening in the Self-Defense Forces, and the feeling will be paralyzed over time. These things are definitely not OK outside of the Self-Defense Forces, but inside the Self-Defense Forces they feel like they are OK. The male self-defense team said that this is part of the communication. This kind of thinking cannot be changed at all. The result is that the victimized female self-defense team can only choose to leave in order to protect themselves.

For Gonoi, leaving the Self-Defense Force is not only a farewell to his dream of becoming a self-defense officer, but also no way to continue practicing judo. In an instant, he lost his life goals, and his mental state was so bad that he wanted to die many times. Until the middle of the night on March 16 this year, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 6 occurred again in the Tohoku region, which reminded Gonoi of how many people died in the Great East Japan Earthquake, but he wanted to die because of this kind of thing.

Finally, Five Wells made a decision that she must fight the issue of sexual harassment within the Self-Defense Forces organization to the end.

Gonoi told "AREA dot." that she heard from the self-defense team members who stayed behind that she wanted to pretend that it didn't happen, which was covering up the truth. If the facts are really covered up, there will be more victims in the future. The perpetrators of sexual harassment are still on the team, and when new female members join the Self-Defense Forces, the same thing will happen again. She hopes to sue the Self-Defense Force by showing her face under her real name, to draw the public's attention to this matter, so that similar things will not happen again within the Self-Defense Force, and hope that the perpetrators can apologize to her.

Human rights groups: Self-Defense Forces need thorough investigation

Kazuko Ito, vice-chairman of the international human rights organization Human Rights Now, pointed out that when sexual violence occurs in a space where men occupy the majority, like the Self-Defense Forces, it is very likely that everyone will pretend not to see it. Even the situation of collusion. Is everyone's confession the same? Or are there subtle differences between each person's confession? If everyone's confessions are the same, there is the possibility of collusion. Whether the prosecuting unit has actually evaluated these confessions is questionable.

Not only that, the prosecutor told Five Wells that several self-defense officers said that only the five wells were brought down, and there was no follow-up obscene behavior. Ito Kazuko believed that this was enough to constitute a crime of atrocity, but the prosecution Atrocity crimes were not prosecuted, which is also suspicious. Are these actions taking place in the private sphere of life? Behavior in training? Or sexual harassment in the name of fake training? These require a thorough investigation to be organized.

This article is simultaneously published in the Japanese current affairs まとめ translation of Kaori Ishikawa.