According to an article published Friday by the Associated Press, the Japanese government said it has no evidence that Japanese women were forced to work in World War II military brothels, according to a statement made on Friday.

The government has not come across anything recorded in the materials it has found that directly shows so-called 'coercion' on the part of the military or constituted authorities," the statement read, as presented in Tokyo.

These women, better known as comfort women, were a part of an atrocious history of sexual slavery on the Asian continent sixty years ago. During World War II, the victims, according to a report complied by Amnesty International, up to 200,000 women were enslaved sexually by the Imperial Army, between 1932 until the end of World War II.

Following these devastating acts, these

Sixty years later, these women have been unable to find justice from the government that ultimately led to their physical and emotional discomfort.

While the American government has watched from afar, it remarkably has not remained silent. In 2005, and again this year, members of the United States Congress have sponsored legislation which would plead for an official apology for the women involved.

There are few times that there is extreme bipartisan support of a measure, especially when it deals with international relations. However, both Democrats and Republicans in Congress see the requests of the comfort women as valid, and want our government to demand this simple act of justice. I stand with them.

There is a striking possibility that the surviving comfort women will never hear a "sorry" from the Japanese government, and an even more likely possibility that they will die before recognition is made. The surviving women are in their 70's, roughly, and have broken their silence to speak out against the sexual violence attributed to war. Breaking their silence, in the Japanese community, led to shame and ousting from mainstream society. But these women outweighed their own discomfort for a greater good, and for that, I admire them.

I personally became connected with the story of the Comfort Women as an actor in the Vagina Monologues on my college campus. Eve Ensler, who compiled the monologues, interviewed several of these courageous women, and made them the topic of the 2005 spotlight.

Theatre is a powerful tool that liberates those who perhaps can not free themselves from societal entrenchment. The comfort women, though few in number, will be heard. Each year, thousands of women will relate their tale on college campuses across the country. These women will trouble the community to take action, to remember, and to speak out against acts of violence against women in times of war.

When those in our global community have no voices, we must be their voices. When those in our community can not achieve justice on their own – we have to help them find that inner peace.

Perhaps the Japanese government will never recognize these atrocities verbally. There is a striking chance that their history will not appear in the country's history texts – those things, those institutional barricades to truth, are not things we are able to control.

But we have to remember the comfort women.

Juana Maria Summers