【雅思精读】女议员勇敢指控性侵，却被称是蒙羞声誉？（上）

　　【雅思精读】女议员勇敢指控性侵，却被称是蒙羞声誉？（上），*注：本文选自12月9日《纽约时报》，下面和上名校小编一起来看看详细内容吧！更多外刊精读请关注环球教育！

　　She Accused the Mayor of Sexual Assault. Then the Town Turned on Her.她指控町长性侵，却被罢免了Assemblymen in Kusatsu, Japan, organized an election to recall their sole female colleague, saying she had damaged the town’s reputation with her allegations.日本草津市的议员组织了一次选举，以召回他们唯一的女同事，说她的性侵指控损害了该镇的声誉

　　1. A Japanese councilor who accused a mayor of sexual assault has been voted out of office by residents after colleagues argued that she had damaged the town’s reputation. Shoko Arai, the only female assembly member in the town of Kusatsu, which is northwest of Tokyo, was ousted after the mayor and other assembly members, having tried and failed to remove her once already, orchestrated a recall election on Sunday.

　　一名议员因指控町长性侵被罢免，原因是人们认为该指控损害了该町名誉。新井香子(Shoko Arai)是东京西北的草津町(Kusatsu)唯一的女议员。町长和其他议员曾试图罢免她，但未能成功，此后，新井香子在周日组织了一场罢免投票。

　　2. The case highlights the difficulties faced by women who come forward with allegations of sexual assault in Japan, where such episodes are underreported and rarely discussed openly. “This is a very, very typical Japanese reaction against female victim-survivors,” said Hiroko Goto, an expert in law and gender at Chiba University.

　　这起案件再次突显日本女性提出性侵指控之后面临的困境。在日本，性侵事件鲜有报道，也很少会公开讨论。千叶大学(Chiba University)法律与性别专家后藤广子(Hiroko Goto)表示:“这是日本对女性受害者非常、非常典型的反应。”

　　3. Last November, Ms. Arai accused Kusatsu’s mayor, Nobutada Kuroiwa, of forcing her into sexual relations in 2015. Mr. Kuroiwa has denied the accusation and filed a defamation complaint against her. The following month, three-quarters of the town’s councilors voted to expel Ms. Arai from the assembly, a decision that was overturned by the government of Gunma Prefecture, which includes Kusatsu.

　　去年11月，新井香子指控草津町长黑岩信田(Nobutada Kuroiwa)在2015年性侵了她。黑岩否认了这一指控，并对她提起了诽谤指控。接下来的一个月，该镇四分之三的议员投票决定将新井香子逐出议会，这一决定被群马县政府推翻，草津町隶属群马县。

图片来源网络

　　4. Mr. Kuroiwa and other assembly members then gathered enough signatures from residents to request a recall election. They argued that Ms. Arai lacked evidence for her claim and that news coverage of the case had damaged the reputation of Kusatsu, a town of about 6,200 people whose economy relies on tourists visiting its hot springs.

　　黑岩信田和其他议员随后收集了居民签名，要求举行罢免。黑岩方辩称，新井香子没有证据证明性侵事实，而媒体对该指控的报道损害了草津町声誉。草津大约有6,200名居民，其经济依赖于游客来此泡温泉带来的收入。

　　5. Residents voted in favor of recalling Ms. Arai, 2,542 to 208. “I think that the referendum result doesn’t reflect the will of citizens,” Ms. Arai said via email on Wednesday, adding that she believed it had been swayed by the mayor and his supporters.

　　投票结果显示，2542人赞成罢免新井香子，仅208票反对。新井香子周三在邮件中说，“我认为此次公投结果并没有真正反映民意。”她还说，她认为町长及其支持者控制了公投。

　　6. In a statement on Sunday after the results of the vote were announced, she said she wanted Kusatsu to be a place where residents did not need to fear the authorities, but “with Mr. Kuroiwa and the current assembly, we can’t achieve that.” She added in the statement that a petition she had started against the recall election had gathered over 12,000 signatures, and that she planned to continue her political activities.

　　周日，在投票结果公布后，她在一份声明中说，她希望草津町能成为一个居民不必屈服于当局权威的地方，但是，“由于黑岩信田及其议会的存在，这还无法实现。”在声明中补充说，已经有1.2万人在她发起的反对罢免请愿上签字，她还会继续她的政治活动。

　　7. Mr. Kuroiwa said the vote had protected the “dignity of the town,” according to The Asahi Shimbun, a national newspaper. Professor Goto said that the lack of coverage of gender-based violence in the Japanese news media, as well as pervasive cultural attitudes that women should be submissive, makes it easy to mobilize public sentiment against women who speak out. Although these attitudes are common across Japan, she added, they are stronger in small towns like Kusatsu, where male politicians “still believe that the women should follow orders.”

　　据日本全国性报纸《朝日新闻》(Asahi Shimbun)报道，黑岩信田称，公投保住了“该町的荣誉。” 后藤广子教授称，日本媒体鲜少会报道性暴力事件，日本文化也认为女性处于顺从的地位，这使人们很容易就能鼓动群众批判敢于指控性暴力的女性。她还说，尽管这在日本很普遍，但是在草津町这样的小镇，这种情况尤甚，那里的男性政客“仍然认为女性应该服从男性。”

　　8. Last year, in a landmark ruling, a Tokyo court sided with Shiori Ito, a journalist who had accused the prominent television journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi of rape, and ordered Mr. Yamaguchi to pay Ms. Ito about $30,000 in damages. Professor Goto said, however, that such rulings remain the exceptions in a justice system in which sexual assault cases rarely go to court.

　　去年，在一项具有里程碑意义的裁决中，东京一家法院站在了记者伊藤诗则(Shiori Ito)一边，命令山口向伊藤诗则支付约3万美元的赔偿金。伊藤诗则曾指控著名电视记者山口纪行(Noriyuki Yamaguchi)侵犯了她。然而，后藤广子说，在日本这样一个性侵案件不上法庭的国家，这样的裁决仍是例外。

　　9. Ms. Arai’s case also highlights the need for more female politicians, she said, adding that she believed the outcome might have been different if there had been more assemblywomen in Kusatsu who were able to amplify Ms. Arai’s voice. Jiro Yamaguchi, a political science professor at Hosei University in Tokyo, said on Twitter that assembly leaders in Kusatsu had essentially used the recall to eliminate an elected opponent. “It’s just an autocracy by the majority,” he said.

　　她说，新井香子的案件表明，日本还需要更多的女性政治家。她认为如果草津町有更多女性议员帮忙发声，结果可能会不一样。东京法政大学(Hosei University)政治学教授山口次郎(Jiro Yamaguchi)在Twitter上表示，草津町议会领导集团其实是在利用罢免选举来打击对手。他说：“这是多数人的独裁统治。”