Home  Contemporary Issues The Long March for Justice: Comfort Women v. Japan
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The Long March for Justice: Comfort Women v. Japan |
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Heisoo Shin, vice-chairperson, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, the United Nations, described the continuing efforts to press Japan for an official apology and reparations for its sexual enslavement of women during World War II. Shin recounted how the government of Japan has consistently refused to acknowledge that the so-called comfort stations set up during the war by the Japanese army were government entities, despite reams of evidence to the contrary. Women from several Asian countries, Korea in particular, were abducted to provide sexual services in these facilities were they were known euphemistically as "comfort women." Although Japan has set up a fund for disbursing money to former comfort women, it has not done the one thing Shin says the survivors want most: accept responsibility. With every passing day, she added, the need for justice becomes more acute. All former comfort women are in their 70s and 80s, and many are in failing health. Of the 215 South Korean former comfort women who've come forward since 1991, 100 have already passed away. The struggle of Korean comfort women was presented vividly and without any filters, as Jang Jeom Dol, a former comfort woman, recalled her own experiences as one of the victims of World War II-era sexual enslavement by the Japanese army. Tenuously holding back her emotions, Jang recalled how she was taken from her family when she was just 14 years old and told she was going to work in a factory. When she ended up instead at a comfort station in Manchuria she first attempted suicide and then tried to escape, but was caught and beaten so severely that the left side of her face remains paralyzed today. After a year and a half she was transported to another station in Singapore. Several pregnancies ended in miscarriages during her time in the comfort stations. Then, in 1945, her captors were themselves taken prisoner after Japan's surrender, leaving her and her fellow comfort women destitute and marooned thousands of miles from home. Relying on the kindness of strangers, Jang eventually returned to her village in Korea, but found that her family had been scattered by the war. The trauma of her ordeal prevented Jang from ever marrying or leading a normal life. John H. Kim, a New York-based lawyer who serves as the coordinator for the New York Coalition on Comfort Women Issues, provided some additional legal context and also served as the moderator for the program.
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