THE MAKABAYAN bloc filed a measure that seeks to integrate the study of the lives and heroism of comfort women during the Japanese occupation in the school curricula.

House Bill 8564 or the proposed Comfort Women Education Act was filed by ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro, Kabataan Party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel and Gabriela Women’s Party-list Arlene Brosas.

Under the measure, the struggles and plight of Filipino comfort women shall be included in the Araling Panlipunan subject in elementary and high school.

In college, educational institutions are mandated to include comfort women education in the list of elective courses.

The lawmakers said the bill seeks to rectify the historical injustice committed against comfort women whose harrowing accounts of sacrifice and martyrdom were not mentioned in the past and present Philippine history books.

“This is in line with the recent United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women recommendation that the Philippines must mainstream in the country’s educational curricula the history of Filipina victims/survivors of wartime sexual slavery, as remembrance is critical to a sensitive understanding of the history of human rights violations endured by these women, to emphasize the importance of advancing human rights and to avoid recurrence,” the lawmakers said in their explanatory note.