page_title: Aso Mining forced labor controversy
section_title: Denials
hierarchical_section_title: Aso Mining forced labor controversy / Denials
caption_attribution_description: The Aso Yoshikuma mine near Fukuoka, Japan, owned by current Japanese prime minister Taro Aso's family and which employed forced POW labor during World War II.
context_page_description: The Aso Mining forced labour controversy concerns the use of Allied prisoners of war and Korean conscripts as labourers for the Aso Mining Company in Japan during World War II. Surviving labourers and other records confirmed that the prisoners and conscripts were forced to work in harsh, brutal conditions for little-to-no pay and that some died, at least in part, because of the ill-treatment at the mine.
  Although reported by Western media sources, former Prime Minister of Japan Taro Aso, whose immediate family owns the company, now called the Aso Group, repeatedly refused to confirm that his family's company had used forced labour until 2009 when it was acknowledged by the Japanese government. Since then, several surviving former Australian POWs have asked Aso and the company to apologise, but both have declined to do so.
context_section_description: In mid-2008 Taro Aso conceded that his family's coal mine, Aso Mining Company, was alleged to have forced Allied POWs to work in the mines in 1945 without pay. Western media had reported that 300 prisoners, including 197 Australians, 101 British, and two Dutch, worked in the mine. Two of the Australians, John Watson and Leslie Edgar George Wilkie, died while working in the Aso mine. In addition, 10,000 Korean conscripts worked in the mine between 1939 and 1945 under severe, brutal conditions in which many of them died or were injured while receiving little pay. Apart from Aso's admission, the Aso company has never acknowledged using forced labour or commented on the issue. The company, now known as the Aso Group, is currently run by Aso's younger brother. Aso's wife serves on its board of directors. Taro Aso was president of the Aso Mining Company's successor, Aso Cement Company, in the 1970s before entering politics.
  During the time that Aso served as minister of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ministry refused to confirm non-Japanese accounts of the use of forced labour by Japanese companies and challenged non-Japanese journalists to back up their claims with evidence. In October 2008, Diet member Shoukichi Kina asked Aso whether any data about the use of Korean labour by Aso Mining had been provided to the South Korean government, which has requested such data. Aso replied that his administration would not disclose how individual corporations have responded to Korean inquiries.
  On 13 November 2008, during a discussion in the Upper House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense about the Tamogami essay controversy, Aso refused to confirm that forced labour had been used at his family's mine, stating that, "No facts have been confirmed." Aso added that, "I was 4, maybe 5 at the time. I was too young to recognize anything at that age." After Yukihisa Fujita responded that records at the United States National Archives and Records Administration indicated that forced labour had taken place at his family's mine, Aso repeated that "no factual details have been confirmed."
caption: The Aso mine near Fukuoka photographed in 1933.
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