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At an election held in New York on June 22, 2017, Professor Chung Chin-sung became the first South Korean to be elected as a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Shortly afterward in early July, the video footage about "Joseon comfort women" Professor Chung's research team discovered at the United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) attracted considerable attention. As such, this month's interview features Professor Chung who has dedicated her academic career to studying women's rights, human rights, and the Japanese military "comfort women" issue.

Interviewer: Seo Hyun-ju (Research fellow, NAHF Institute of Japanese Studies)

Chung Chin-sung (Professor, Seoul National University)

Professor Chung Chin-sung began studying sociology at Seoul National University and received her doctoral degree in the same field from the University of Chicago in the United States. She has served as a member of the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights as well as the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council. She has also served as a member of the Korea-Japan Joint History Research Committee, a co-representative of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, and president of the Korea Center for United Nations Human Rights Policy. Besides her role as a sociology professor at Seoul National University, she has worked as director of the university’s institute for social development and policy research as well as the university’s human rights center. In terms of academic societies, she has served as president of the Korean Sociological Association and the Korean Association of Women’s Studies. She is currently serving as a member of the Northeast Asian History Foundation’s advisory committee. Her major publications include “Ilbongun seongnoyeje” [Japanese Military Sexual Slavery] and “Hyeondae ilbon eui sahoe undongron” [Social Movements in Modern Japan]. She is the co-author of “Ingwoneuro ilkneun dongasiasa” [Human Rights in East Asia] and helped compile “Hanguk hyeondae yeoseongsa” [The Current History of Korean Women] and “Yeoseong eui nuneuro bon hanil geunhyeondaesa” [Gender Perspective on Modern and Contemporary History of Korea and Japan].

Q1. You seem to be busier than during the semester, so could you please tell us how you've been doing lately? We would like to hear about the research topics you've been looking into or activities you've been taking part in.

Chung Chin-sung Since it's summer break, I don't have any classes to teach, but I've been a bit busy because I had to attend a conference on human rights held in Jeju Island as soon as I came back from the election of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Through that conference, we agreed to establish the Korean Society of Human Rights and I've been appointed as its first president, which means I'm now charged with making arrangements to launch the society. I've also recently worked on a revised edition of my publication "Japanese Military Sexual Slavery" from 2004 and I'm preparing a different manuscript to soon publish a series of research I've been doing on the human rights issues involving Korean residents in Japan.

Q2. After majoring in comparative sociology, you've long maintained at interest in the Japanese military "comfort women" issue, so what drew you toward the issue in the first place?

Chung Chin-sung Even before I began taking an interest in the issue, I had already authored research papers about social changes and female labor during Japan's occupation of Korea. But I would have to say that Professor Lee Hyo-chae's call for help had a rather direct impact on me in developing an interest in the issue. She established the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (hereinafter the Council) with Professor Yun Chung-ok in November 1990, a few months after Professor Yun formed the Korean Research Group of Women Drafted for Ministry Sex Slavery by Japan (hereinafter the Research Group) in July of the same year. Once the two professors began co-heading the Council, Professor Lee reached out to me and asked me to take charge of the Research Group since I'd written papers on female labor. And I thereafter got more people involved to start building a collection of testimonies given by the Japanese military comfort women victims. Thanks to the efforts a number of people have put in, the research group has now evolved into a formal research institute.

Q3. Could you please tell us the purpose for your arguing for the term "military sexual slavery by Japan" to be used instead of the term "Japanese military comfort women"?

Chung Chin-sung The term "wianbu" (慰安婦) [comfort women] actually doesn't make any sense at all. Who is comforting who? Through research, I found the term "comfort station" used in a document Japan produced around the early 1940s, and the term "jeongsindae" (挺身隊) was discovered in a Japanese imperial edict on female voluntary labor. Back then, the term "wianbu" was used in Japan to indicate something similar to "gongchang" (公娼) [licensed prostitutes], which is how the term "jonggun wianbu" (從軍慰安婦) [Japanese military comfort women] came to survive for such a long time. "Jeongsindae" in fact refers to a "corps exploited for labor by the government" and there were several different kinds of combinations based on the term such as “medical jeongsindae” or “labor jeongsindae,” which makes the term inappropriate for describing the victims and scheme we were talking about. The term "jonggun wianbu" was deemed inappropriate as well because the word "jonggun" has a "voluntary" connotation. So, after much consideration, we decided to go with "ilbongun wianbu" [Japanese military comfort women], and when the matter first became raised before the United Nations in 1992, we thought it would be best to use the expression "military sexual slavery by Japan." Even so, the word slavery could bring back a more severe sense of pain for the victims, which is why we have come to use both terms. Anyway, I still think "military sexual slavery by Japan" is the term that most accurately captures the issue.

Q4. Twenty-five years have already passed since the Japanese military comfort women issue was first raised internationally in 1992. Please tell us what you consider as the greatest achievements made or things left to be desired so far.

Chung Chin-sung In some ways, I personally don't feel proud about the fact we had to internationally expose a matter that we should have been able to handle on our own. But the Japanese government showed no response whatsoever toward the issue, so we were left with no other choice. Of course, the Japanese government still doesn’t seem eager about continuing to work toward a resolution, but it did start to grow disconcerted when the international reaction turned out to be stronger than expected once the issue was raised at the United Nations. What is more is that the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) published a report titled "Comfort Women: An Unfinished Ordeal," which helped the issue become documented by the UN Commission and Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. That made it possible for anyone to learn about the Japanese military comfort women issue and the issue's international legal aspects. One other achievement would be that bringing up the subject of "systematic rape of women during war" has created the opportunity to raise awareness toward women's rights in the international society. Because there are many other similar cases all around the world. I think that raising the issue has contributed somewhat toward changing the way we perceive the Japanese military comfort women in our own society and our self-awareness of women's rights.

What is left to be desired is that the Japanese military comfort women issue is being treated as a general matter of women's rights during war, which makes it difficult to feature "colony" as a major aspect of the issue. Even though Korean women were subjects of a Japanese colony instead of the enemy, they were forcibly taken away, locked up, and sexually exploited for a long time. It's obviously not easy to raise human rights issues that occurred at colonies when Western societies with imperialistic pasts now make up the mainstream of the international community, but I hope the younger generation of experts will be able to successfully sort such issues out in the future.

Q5. Many things must have crossed your mind after the Korea-Japan comfort women agreement became concluded in 2015. What do you think of the agreement? And if the newly inaugurated government ends up dealing with it too, what sort of advice would you give?

Chung Chin-sung Although matters of history take time to study and collect material, a proper source book dedicated to the Japanese military comfort women is yet to be published in South Korea. And without a sufficient amount of systematic studies done on the issue, South Korea has been trying to resolve it through diplomatic means and I believe the Korea-Japan comfort women agreement has been a result of being utterly unprepared. The more sensitive an issue historically is, the more reason not to treat it as a matter of political compromise, but I can't shake away the sense that the negotiation itself proceeded too hastily near the end. Now the agreement is keeping us from cooperating with Japan on various other issues such as those of security, economy, and the environment. Now that we have a new administration in power, I trust we should be able to carefully review the issues that arose in the process of reaching the Korea-Japan comfort women agreement and meanwhile separate the matter from others involving the economy, security, and environment so that we can continue to build cooperative relations.

Q6. A few months ago, we ran into conflict with Japan over the installation of a comfort women statue in front of the Japanese consulate in Busan. It seems likely that Japan will continue to request for the statue to be removed, so how do you think we should respond?

Chung Chin-sung The Council was responsible for installing the first comfort women statue in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, and as far as I'm aware, various civic groups followed suit by installing similar statues at other locations including Busan. I can't be certain as to whether installing the statues are diplomatically problematic, but I do think the installations need to be more systematically arranged if they possess such a great deal of symbolic significance. Perhaps the Council could take the lead in discussions for such systemization, and it does seem appropriate for the Korean government to take a step back because such installations fall under non-governmental activities. I also think the matter depends a whole lot on how public opinions are formed about it.

Q7. We know you've also been involved in many other activities to improve the human rights of women who have relocated to South Korea due to marriage, to improve the rights of females in higher education, and to institutionalize women's studies in Korea. Was there anything in particular that drew your attention toward such issues?

Chung Chin-sung When I was an undergrad in 1972, I was the only female in the department of sociology. And once I came back in 1984 after studying in the United States, women's studies and awareness toward women's rights were emerging. So, just like how I got involved in the Council, I naturally began participating in studies and activities related to women. Then when I became an assistant professor at Seoul National University in 1996, there were many students in women's studies at the sociology department. So, I created the Institute for Gender Research and the interdisciplinary program in gender studies at the university, and also formed a Female Faculty Association with my colleagues in the sociology department.

As a female scholar studying sociology, the problems experienced by women who relocate to Korea due to marriage seem serious, but have failed to gain enough interest from the government or the media. Since the 2000s, it's been growing difficult for foreign women to enter South Korea without getting married. There are of course women who manage to settle down well, but because of cultural differences or difficulties in communicating, many also end up in conflict with husbands who tend to be a lot older than themselves, which often leads to domestic violence or divorce. For these reasons, a one-day training program started to be offered since 2007 to women in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam planning to get married and relocate to South Korea. The program is now being run by the South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. Nevertheless, many problems still prevail. We still need to figure out how to deal with women fleeing with their children to their home country due to domestic violence without getting divorced, their half-Korean children struggling with identity issues while living in their mother's home country, and complications with their education as Korean nationals.

Q8. We heard that you've recently developed an interest in human rights issues involving Korea residents in Japan, so could you please tell us a bit about what you're studying?

Chung Chin-sung Writing a research paper on Korean residents in Japan made me wonder how Koreans who never made it back home from Japan during the Japanese occupation of Korea are doing today. Even now, around 330,000 of them have not acquired Japanese nationality even after living in the country for more than four or five generations. Some 30,000 of them are still nationals of "Joseon," their home country before it became split into the two Koreas. I believe those numbers alone communicate how much discrimination they've experienced so far in Japan. The previous administration denied the entry of "Joseon" nationals from Japan into South Korea, and I think that's an example of issues that need to be fixed.

Matters are even more complicated when it comes to Korean schools in Japan. Many of them are severely discriminated for being established and run by the pro-North Korean General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, which tends to make it difficult for the South Korean government to get involved with such schools. The number of schools and students have now dropped significantly. Yet, up to 70-80 percent of the students who attend Korean schools in Japan are South Korean nationals, so our society should be taking a greater interest in their education.

Q9. Last month, you became the first South Korean to be elected as a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). What do you plan to focus on during your term?

Chung Chin-sung Unlike drafting reports according to specific themes while I took part in the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, CERD is an organization that screens reports submitted by countries. It reviews both reports regularly submitted every four years by individual governments as well as non-government organizations and then issues recommendations on human rights for each country. I see myself focusing on Korean schools in Japan or problems involving foreign women relocating to South Korea due to marriage as I review reports from Japan or South Korea. My health will probably suffer since I'm getting old, but I still feel that I should try to lend my support wherever necessary.

Q10. Finally, we would like to ask how well you think the Northeast Asian History Foundation has carried out its purpose so far and whether you have any advice on what it needs to do in the future.

Chung Chin-sung The Northeast Asian History Foundation is an institution that's been established to correct distortions about historical facts. It reached its tenth anniversary last year, but besides internally forming separate research institutes and accumulating research material related to issues surrounding the Korean island Dokdo, I don't think its other achievements have been publicized widely enough. Also, there are only two to three female members including myself out of a total of thirty or so members in the Foundation's advisory committee, so I hope that number can be increased in the future.