ABSTRACT
In March 2016, a young Japanese woman named Rina Shimabukuro was reported missing in Okinawa, the island housing 75 per cent of US military installations in Japan. Two months later, her mutilated body was found in the woods. A former US Marine and current employee at a US military base was arrested and accused of rape and murder. The outraged local community gave a collective shout of “Our anger has reached its limit!” and, several weeks after the body was found, people gathered at a mass demonstration to express their anger at the US bases in general and sexual violence by US soldiers in particular (CBS News 2016). Some of those voices called the rape an example of not only direct violence but also structural violence such as militarization and racism (Takara 2016). 1
