뉴스레터

Uniting by remembering

The "Wednesday rally for the resolution of the Japanese military comfort women issue" that began in January 1992 is still going on in March 2020. On August 14, 1991, Kim Hak-sun, then 67, made the first public testimony as a Japanese military comfort woman. The number of rallies reached 1,430 over the past 28 years since the first demonstration was held on January 8, 1992 demanding the Japanese government's apology and reparations. It is the world's longest running protest held under the same topic. Until when do we have to continue these demonstrations? The victims never missed the rally through the 1,000th demonstration, but more victims have died of old age with the passing of time. Grandma Gil Won-ok was the only victim to take part in the 1,400th rally. While only 19 out of the 240 victims who had reported the damages of their sexual slavery, more people became aware that the atrocities committed against "comfort women" severely infringed upon women's human rights. The Wednesday rallies served as an occasion to publicize the horrors suffered by women exposed to wartime sexual violence, awakening the international community to the issue and escalating it into a worldwide movement through international solidarity activities.

More recently, however, the comfort women issue seems to be shaken from the roots. Since the Korea-Japan agreement in December 2015, the Japanese government has denied the forced mobilization of comfort women and "sexual slavery" to the international community, claiming that the comfort women issue had been resolved. "Anti-Japan Tribalism", a book that made headlines in Korea and Japan in 2019, was assessed as a pro-Japanese book supporting the distortion of history by arguing that the comfort women did not even exist, but the book sold 100,000 copies domestically and as many as 400,000 in Japan.

The comfort women issue became the premier topic arousing anti-Korean sentiment in Japan, too. The comfort women issue is not an age-old past. It is a matter of the present and the future. Although not a single victim remains after the passing of time, we assume the responsibility of properly delivering the truth of the issue to future generations.

Readers confront historical facts and judge reality

There are people who claim that the Japanese military comfort women were not sexual slaves and that the issue was settled through compensation. We are angry about it, but it is not easy to dispute it logically. We feel as if confronting the inconvenient truth, so it may feel burdensome and difficult. Then how many of us could understand the history of the comfort women broadly and explain the importance of acknowledging historical facts and apologizing properly?

Because this book put together solid facts concisely and simply based on historical records, readers can understand the comfort women issue easily and read it with ease. The book enables readers to confront historical facts in person and judge the reality through a number of official documents left by the Japanese government and victims' testimonies.

In 2019, 'Ceremony for unveiling comfort woman status' held in Seoul, Republic of Korea,

the victim survivor Yi Yong-Soo is touching the statue.
(korea.net, Official Photographer : Kim Sun-joo)

Putting together issues, from historical facts to Korea-Japan diplomacy and the Japanese military comfort women

Chapter 1 dealt with the testimony of victims of the Japanese military's sexual slavery. The focus was on their courage and the process in which the truth of the problems is uncovered. The victims' testimony is not something unbelievable. Rather, it talks about historical facts that the data do not mention.

Chapter 2 focused on delving into the correlation of Japan's war of aggression and the military comfort women system. The essence of the comfort women issue is that Japan's military and government used women's sexuality as a tool to execute their war of aggression. This book scrutinized how the comfort women had been mobilized and what kind of crimes had been committed and overlooked, based on their documents. This plainly proves that Japan's military and government were the accomplice of organized crime.

Chapter 3 dealt with the limitations of solving the comfort women issue through diplomatic negotiations. This book denounces the Japanese government's regressive behavior to actively deny even the historical facts that it has acknowledged to date and the remarks based on historical revisionism.

Finally, chapter 4 translated and conveyed the United Nations' reports related to the comfort women and each nation's resolution. From the perspective of universal awareness, it dealt with the reason that the international community perceives the essence of the comfort women issue as "sexual violence against women amid armed conflicts" and "losses caused by the sexual slavery system", and why each nation's parliament adopts a resolution urging the Japanese government to resolve the comfort women issue. Also, chapter 4 points out the awareness problems of Japanese rightists watering down the essence of the sexual slavery system and counterattacking the international community's resolutions.

Issue of humanism rather than nationalistic conflict

The comfort women issue is not a problem of nationalistic conflict. It is a problem of human rights and that of humanism. Human rights are not an issue over which both Korea and Japan would clash. Yet Japanese rightists claim that the Japanese military comfort women were not mobilized coercively and were simply "prostitutes". They are trying to change the awareness of the international community. They are trying to brand the comfort women as anti-Japan nationalism and an anti-Japanese symbol.

Knowing historical facts is the first step toward restoring honor to the victims. If history is recorded and remembered, problems can always be resolved.