[학생기자코너]YaeYoung Sandra Song

Chantilly High School, grade 10

Military Sexual Slavery by Japan- The Forgotten Comfort Women Humanity

During World War II, the combat soldiers weren’t the only group dicing with death. Behind the scene, groups like the “comfort women” were suffering due to Japan’s brutal enforced prostitution. In 1932, after Japan’s successful invasion of Manchuria, they brought about 500,000 to 2,000,000 young women from neighboring Asian countries to “comfort” the soldiers. Most were from Korea, and these women had to survive daily rapes up to 40 times a day. Only about one out of four survived, 40% committed suicide, and these comfort women had a higher death rate than the frontline combat soldiers (Noh, 2015) However, what made these atrocities more devastating was that for 70 years, Japan denied the existence of comfort women.

In August of 1991, 46 years after the end of the war, Kim Hak-Sun became the first to talk about her experiences as a Korean victim. Soon, many victims followed in Kim’s footsteps as they were encouraged through the drastic increase of comfort women awareness and aid campaigns. Yet, Japan still did not acknowledge their involvement in the prostitution and only made ambiguous statements or generic expressions of regret.

When Japanese involvement in the prostitution was first revealed through a record book, they issued the Kono statement, sending a generic apology. However, they soon denied their crime by declaring that they have already reimbursed through Korean-Japan Treaty and San Francisco Peace Treaty, which were signed only for diplomatic purposes.

Moreover, when the comfort women tried to take legal actions for defamation, the case quickly ended with the Supreme Court’s decision against the plaintiff. Finally, in 2015, Korea and Japan made a negotiation settlement. Japan agreed to acknowledge its wrongdoing and the government formally apologized on the behalf of Abe for the victims’ affront.

Although the governmental relations seem to have been solved, the comfort women have yet to receive what they feel is fair compensation. The comfort women want a humane apology by Abe, investigation to reveal the depth and severity of the crime, full reparations, memorials to commemorate the victims, and education about the transgression (Noh, 2015).

As a leader of a country, Abe should realize that this is no time to stand on pride, and that pride is something that is actually gained when one becomes more humble. It won’t be long or difficult to give a sincere apology, and on the wings of time, grief will eventually fly away.