Plaintiff Eiko Shirafuji (second from right) and others form a human chain around the Osaka District Court to protest the court's rejection of a damages suit against Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. over its discrimination against women.

OSAKA -- Some 330 people formed a human chain Thursday around the Osaka District Court to protest its rejection a month ago of a 160 million yen damages suit filed against Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. by two female employees who claimed they were victims of gender bias.

During their lunchtime, the protesters, including women working in the area, joined hands for about 15 minutes from 12:30 p.m., calling the July 31 ruling unjust.

"When the ruling was read out, I felt frozen with anger," said Eiko Shirafuji, 50, one of the plaintiffs. "Discrimination against women is a violation of human rights. We want to make our office observe human rights."

Mitsuko Miyaji, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said the ruling was based on nothing but the judges' prejudice against women. "The court is supposed to protect human rights, but it now protects the interests of enterprises," she said.

In the suit, Shirafuji and Katsumi Nishimura, 52, who filed the litigation, claimed they were discriminated against in terms of salary and advancement because they are women.

In rejecting their claim, the court said Sumitomo Electric did not violate social order and act illegally, considering the strong division of labor by gender in the late 1960s when the two were hired. The court, however, said the firm's recruiting system violated Article 14 of the Constitution.

Nishimura and Shirafuji started at Sumitomo Electric as clerical workers in the late 1960s, but after more than 30 years at the company, neither of them has been promoted to a senior position, resulting in a maximum 240,000 yen monthly salary difference in the late 1990s between the two and male workers who started working at Sumitomo Electric during the same period.

The court said the difference was because the men had been hired by the company's headquarters and were expected to be senior staffers, while the women, including Nishimura and Shirafuji, were hired by a local office and expected to carry out limited tasks.

Although the court found the recruiting system violated Article 14, which bans discrimination based on gender, the system was not illegal under the circumstances at the time, it said.

The court did not offer compensation because if the past recruitment, which was not illegal at the time, had been judged by the current criteria, as the plaintiffs sought, this would have threatened "legal stability," it said.

The plaintiffs are appealing the ruling.