Japan's Defense Ministry has dismissed five members of the Ground Self-Defense Force for sexually harassing a female colleague.

The ministry announced the disciplinary measures on Thursday following its investigation into a complaint filed by a 23-year-old former GSDF member, Gonoi Rina, who had been assigned to a unit in Fukushima Prefecture until June.

Gonoi had accused several members of the unit of sexually harassing her on multiple occasions.

The ministry discharged the five officers, who range in age from their 20s to their 40s. They were Gonoi's superiors at the time she was harassed.

The ministry says four of them touched Gonoi's breasts or pinned her down in June and August last year. The fifth man reportedly urged the other four to commit some of these acts.

It says that some of these officers told Gonoi not to tell anybody about what they had done to her. It added that they denied facts and provided false explanations during an internal investigation by the GSDF.

The ministry slapped a six-month suspension on the commander of the unit at the time for failing to investigate a complaint filed by Gonoi.

It also gave a reprimand to another officer for making sexually explicit comments and warnings to two other officers for violating their duties of command and supervision.

GSDF Chief of Staff General Yoshida Yoshihide said at a news conference on Thursday that he is taking this case extremely seriously. He said that as the head of the organization, he feels a strong sense of responsibility for all the suffering Gonoi has been subjected to.

He pointed out that the men who were accused were not aware that what they were doing to their female colleague constituted sexual harassment.

He said the main reason for this is that the GSDF does not have an organizational culture that forbids harassment.

Yoshida said that he intends to introduce measures to establish such a culture in the GSDF.