뉴스레터

The movement to resolve the Japanese military comfort women issue is one of the most successful feminism movements in the world chosen by Western feminism historians. That is because this issue was propagated to various international human rights organizations including the United Nations, Amnesty International, and the International Labor Organization thanks to vigorous lobbying activities by feminists in the early 1990s and when the parliaments of six countries, including the United States, the Netherlands, and the European Union, adopted resolutions urging the Japanese government to solve the problem. This is a very rare case even now as it was in the 1990s. Furthermore, female victims set an example for victims across the world by performing vigorous activities such as taking part in the Wednesday “comfort women” rally with the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and becoming activists. Nevertheless, the comfort women issue still remains an unsolved problem. What is the reason, and what should we do to solve the problem?

Patriarchy and the continuity of “instrumentation of the female body”

We opened the permanent display room of the Japanese military comfort women in Berlin, Germany, on September 12, 2019. The exhibition was initially entitled the “Unsolved Japanese Military Comfort Women Issue and Continuity of Female Sexual Violence”, but the title was changed to “Our Struggle to Oppose Japanese Military Comfort Women and Female Sexual Violence”. Because the word “unsolved” gives a negative connotation, we decided to give more weight to our positive and future-oriented “joint struggle”.

This writer began to gather solidarity to resolve the Japanese military comfort women issue at AG Trostfrauen (Solidarity with Comfort Women) in earnest in 2007, and organized testimony gatherings every year by December 2017 in the presence of the elderly victims. Giving a series of lectures at the invitation of civic groups, universities, high schools, and women’s groups in more than 30 German cities and holding dialogue with German citizens, I have made an effort to highlight the following views.

Regulations governing the use of the Iloilo comfort station in the Japanese military unit in the Philippines,

similar to those enforced in the Wehrmachsbordell comfort station run by Nazi Germany.

First, to publicize the true picture of the Japanese military comfort women issue, we had to inform the world that the comfort women system was a sex slavery scheme that went beyond the group rape of women that the enemy conducted to dampen the spirits of friendly forces. Japan’s attitude in the treatment of women in Korea, a colony at the time, was not humane. This was made possible only from their patriarchal and fascistic point of view. The Japanese government’s avoidance and denial of the concept of the sexual slavery system to this day is certainly an operation to avoid key topics in solving the problem. According to Rule 6 governing the use of the Iloilo comfort station in the Philippines operated by the Japanese military unit in November 1942, comfort women were able to go out only from 8 to 10 AM. The unit stressed the use of condoms to prevent soldiers from contracting sexual diseases; regulations governing the use of condoms there were similar to those enforced in the Wehrmachtsbordell comfort station run by Nazi Germany. We can confirm the clause reading, “Using condoms provided for free is obligatory.” A close look at medical certificates on sexual diseases at the comfort station shows that most of the women were minors, proof that women were taken as victims of coercive sexual exploitation. The description of “approval” applied to women found not to have contracted sexual diseases is evidence that the women’s bodies became a tool and a target.

At the same time, the medical certificate regarding sexual diseases is effective evidence of sexual slavery. Similar sexual disease testing certificates were used when women imprisoned at Germany’s labor camps were “forced to perform sex labor” for male inmates. Every one of the women in military camp towns in Korea was obligated to carry a health certificate under her own name. Japan’s comfort stations and Germany’s labor camps did not require health certificates because women there were imprisoned.

Second, the Japanese military comfort women issue was known to be a matter between Korea and Japan, and the fact that women in the Asian-Pacific region fell prey to the comfort women system did not come to be accepted as true. Korea was more patriarchal than the Western world, so victimized women could not publicize the matter and had to live in shame, covering it up. Although there was “forced sex labor” at the Wehrmacht (defense force) labor camp and German women were gang-raped by Soviet, American, British, and French Allied forces, the damages were not made known. Why, then, did Germany fail to escalate the matter into a feminist movement? It is likely because of the patriarchal structure in which women in the vanquished nation could not protest sexual violence by male Allied soldiers who were the victors. Also, a number of women in France, Russia, and Poland became sex slaves at the hands of Germany’s Wehrmacht, but could not receive help in their countries.

Third, the Korean government had tried for a long time to cover up the Japanese military comfort women issue, just like the Japanese government. No one believes this fact, but it is true. At present, however, Korea is almost the only country in the Asian-Pacific region in which both citizens and the government are continuing their fight for truth and justice. This exhibition therefore introduces the lifetimes of the victimized women in 10 countries in the Asian-Pacific region (South and North Korea included as two countries), and who they are.

Fourth, we tried to look at the Japanese military comfort women issue, deviating from the dichotomous way of considering victims versus perpetrators. Korea was victimized by Japan, but simultaneously became a perpetrator in the Vietnam War. Korea is a good example showing the importance of the settlement of past history and education in school.

The permanent display room is the first specialized museum dealing with women’s problems in Germany, and contains a broad range of topics including women’s groups active around the world at present as well as in the past and the #MeToo movement. Such artworks as the “Statue of a Girl of Peace”, created by Kim Seo Gyeong and Kim Un-seong, and the “Vietnam Peita” are also on display. As the movement to resolve the Japanese military comfort women has made a contribution to Korean society, we hope to offer a proper impression of female sexual violence through the education of German students, including workshops, in the future. It is our humble desire that we can educate, prevent, and further help women even a little to cope with the trauma of sexual violence.