뉴스레터

On May 30, 2015, the 2nd International Conference on the 'Comfort Women' Issue was held in Yanji, China. Over thirty scholars from South Korea, China, North Korea, and Japan participated. While there have been conferences on the 'comfort women' issue before where Korean, Chinese, and Japanese scholars participated, this one is the first of its kind in recent years where the participants included North Korean scholars.

A total of twelve papers were presented in three sessions at the conference. The papers presented were largely divided into two categories depending on the topics they covered in detail. The papers in the first category, which highlighted the historical aspects of the Japanese military sexual slavery system, include: 'A Study on the Japanese Military-Operated "Comfort Stations" during World War II - with Focus on the Yangjiazhai (楊家宅) "Comfort Station" in Shanghai' by Professor Su Chih-liang; 'A Study on the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery System for the Kwantung Army in Northeast China' by Researcher Zhao Yujie; and '"Comfort Stations" for the Japanese Military Found in Korea and the Truth About the Crime of Sexual Slavery' by Researcher Lee Cheol-hong. The papers in the second category, which reviewed the recent developments surrounding this issues in Korea and the rest of the world and the challenges ahead, include: 'The Controversy of Japanese Society and the Asahi Shimbun Surrounding the "Comfort Women" Issue' by Professor Kim Puja; 'Japan's Denial of its Crime of Sexual Slavery and Challenges for the International Community' by Kim Cheol-nam; 'Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Perception of History and the "Comfort Women' Issue" by Research Fellow Nam Sang-Gu; and 'A Study on 'Comfort Women'-related Legislation Activities in the U.S. Congress' by Professor Wang Yuichang.

"Newly Discovered Materials Highlighted, Expected to Move Discussion Forward"

Of the papers presented which highlighted the historical aspects of the Japanese military sexual slavery system, Researcher Zhao Yujie's presentation attracted the attention of the participants. Researcher Zhao is the one who played an important role when China's Jilin Provincial Archives found 25 documents related to the Japanese military sexual slavery from its collection of documents of the Kwantung Army Military Police Headquarters and the Manchuria Central Bank and made them public last year. In this presentation, he referred to newly found materials in addition to these disclosed documents in analyzing the characteristics of the Japanese military sexual slavery system set up in Northest China. He talked about the 'Xinjing Military Assembly Hall' which the Kwantung Army Headquarters, stationed in Xinjing (present-day Changchun (長春), China), had issued a notice to its unit on April 6, 1942 to start operation on April 8. He argued that the Xinjing Military Hall was the Kwantung Army's comfort station, managed directly by the unit of the headquarters in Xinjing and operated by a private contractor. His presentation was based largely on the three newly discovered documents. If more details of these documents are revealed, it will lead to a more in-depth discussion.

Researcher Lee Cheol-hong at the History Research Institute said that a comfort station for the Japanese military had been set up in Punggol, Nanam, a district in North Hamgyeong Province in Korea, in 1928 after discussion among the commander of the Nanam 19th Division, the provost marshal, and the provincial governor. And he argued that this was confirmed to be the first comfort station for the Japanese military set up in Korea. He also said that there were two more comfort stations, the Bangjin comfort station in Cheongjin, and the Hoeryeong comfort station, and these three comfort stations under the control of the 19th Division of the Japanese military were representative comfort stations in Korea, as confirmed by the site investigations conducted by Korean and Japanese researchers between 1999 and 2008. His argument that the Punggol comfort station was established in 1928 is inconsistent with the view generally accepted by the academia that the first comfort stations for the Japanese military appeared in Shanghai in 1932. Therefore, this argument will require additional documentary evidence before it can be established and substantiated.

Professor Kim Puja at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies gave a presentation about the developments in Japan since the launch of the second Abe Cabinet in the end of 2012 to deny the Kono Statement in which it had acknowledged that the Japanese military had been involved in coercing 'comfort women' into sexual slavery. Specifically, she talked about how the Asahi Simbun, when it had cancelled its articles based on the testimony of Yoshida Seiji (吉田淸治) (which supported that 'comfort women' had been coerced) last August, had drawn attacks from the government and the press for publishing those articles in the first place. She explained what was wrong with the report by the third-party committee to verify the Asahi Simbun's coverage of 'comfort women,' a committee that the Asahi Shimbun had asked for in response to the attacks. She also talked about Comfort Women for the Empire, a book by Park Yu-ha which had been banned in Korea for viewing 'comfort women' from the same perspective as the Japanese rightists, and expressed concerns about how this book was praised by the Asahi Shimbun and other progressive media in Japan.

The Participating Scholars Criticize the Japanese Government for Denying the Historical Facts

In the general discussion, there was a heated debate among the participants over the terms describing human trafficking and how they should view the testimony of Yoshida Seiji. Impressively, the North Korean scholars actively participated in the discussion. It was obvious that the researchers from the participating countries had almost the same level of information about developments in the 'comfort women' issue in Japan and the international community. And they all agreed that 'comfort women' were essentially sex slaves and that returning to the basics of 'the truth is what matters' is important in this situation where the Japanese government and society's perception of the 'comfort women' issue is going backwards, They all criticized the Japanese government for denying that the Japanese military had set up comfort stations and forced women into sexual service there when this is a historical fact supported by the victims' testimony and the Japanese military's documents,

This international conference saw more participants than the first one as Japan joined for the first time. And the discussion was also more in-depth than before. In addition, as a result of this conference, it was confirmed that since 'comfort women' studies is still ongoing and has a short history, there are differences to be reconciled in terms of terminology, concept, perception, etc. If this conference continues to be held to share newly discovered materials and have related discussions, the truth about the Japanese military sexual slavery system will become clearer, and it will help researchers from different countries deepen their collective awareness of it. I hope that the venue of the conference will not be confined to Yanji but move to other locations like Seoul, Pyeongyang, Beijing, and Tokyo so as to facilitate studies on 'comfort women' in East Asian academia.