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This is a list of people who were compelled into becoming prostitutes for the Japanese Imperial Army as "comfort women" during World War II. [1]
Several decades after the end of the war, a number of former comfort women demanded formal apologies and a compensation from the Government of Japan, with varying levels of success. [2]
Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese ianfu (慰安婦), which literally means "comforting, consoling woman". During World War II, Japanese troops forced hundreds of thousands of women from Australia, Burma, China, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, and other countries into sexual enslavement for Japanese troops; however, the majority of the women were from Korea. Many women died or committed suicide due to brutal mistreatment and sustained physical and emotional distress. After the war, Japan's acknowledgment of the comfort women's plight was minimal, lacking a full apology and appropriate restitution, which damaged Japan's reputation in Asia for decades. Only in the 1990s did the Japanese government begin to officially apologize and offer compensation.
María Rosa Luna Henson or "Lola Rosa" was the first Filipina who made public in 1992 her story as a comfort woman for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War.
Lai Đại Hàn is a term used in the Vietnamese language to refer to a person who was born to a Vietnamese mother and a South Korean father during the Vietnam War. The births of these people occurred because of South Korean involvement in the Vietnam War; approximately 350,000 South Korean soldiers were deployed to South Vietnam between 1964 and 1973. It is a politically significant term with regard to South Korea–Vietnam relations and carries a heavy social stigma due to the fact that wartime sexual violence was endemic in Vietnam when these people were conceived. A large number of Lai Đại Hàn births were the result of pregnancies from rape, as various studies have determined that around half of all sexual encounters involving South Korean soldiers and Vietnamese women were not consensual. The community has faced unequal and discriminatory treatment from the Vietnamese government, while the South Korean government has refused to acknowledge and address the rape of Vietnamese women during the conflict.
Liu Huang A-tao was a Taiwanese activist. She was one of thousands of women from Japanese occupied Taiwan who were forced into sexual slavery as comfort women by the Japanese military during World War II. Liu Huang became the first Taiwanese woman to sue the Japanese government for compensation and a public apology in 1999, a move which united her with eight other comfort women survivors. Her public campaign and push for compensation earned her the nickname Grandma A-tao.
Kim Hak-sun (1924–1997) was a Korean human rights activist who campaigned against sex slavery and wartime sexual violence. Kim was one of the victims who had been forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army between the early 1930s up until the end of the Pacific War. She is the first woman in Korea to come forward publicly and testify her experience as a comfort woman for the Japanese military. Her testimony was made on 14 August 1991. In December 1991, she filed a class-action lawsuit against the Japanese government for the damages inflicted during the war. She was the first of what would become hundreds of women from Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Netherlands who came forward to tell their stories of their enslavement to the Imperial Japanese military. She was inspired to finally take her story public after 40 years of silence by the growth of the women's rights movement in South Korea. Kim died in 1997 and her court case was still ongoing.
Wednesday demonstration, officially named Wednesday Demonstration demanding Japan to redress the Comfort Women problems, is a weekly protest in South Korea which aims at obtaining justice from the Japanese government regarding the large scale sexual slavery system established under Imperial Japan rule during World War II. The weekly protest is held in the presence of surviving comfort women on every Wednesday at noon in front of the Embassy of Japan in Seoul.
The Kono Statement refers to a statement released by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yōhei Kōno on August 4, 1993, after the conclusion of the government study that found that the Japanese Imperial Army had forced women, known as comfort women, to work in military-run brothels during World War II. The Japanese government had initially denied that the women had been coerced until this point. In the Kono Statement, the Japanese government acknowledged that:
Jeanne Alida "Jan" Ruff-O'Herne was a Dutch Australian of Irish ancestry and human rights activist known for campaigning internationally against war rape. During World War II, Ruff-O'Herne was forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. After remaining silent for fifty years, Ruff-O'Herne spoke out publicly from the 1990s until her death to demand a formal apology from the Japanese government and to highlight the plight of other "comfort women". On her death, the South Australian Attorney-General noted: "her story of survival is a tribute to her strength and courage, and she will be sorely missed not only here in South Australia, but around the world."
Park Yu-ha is a professor at the College of Liberal Arts, Sejong University. Her research focuses on Japanese–Korean relations. Her 2013 book Comfort Women of the Empire criticized the Korean interpretation of comfort women as exclusively "sex slaves".
Events from the year 1991 in South Korea.
Lee Yong-soo is a former comfort woman from South Korea. Lee was forced to serve as a sex slave during World War II by the Imperial Japanese Army. She is one of the youngest comfort women still living.
The Apology is a 2016 documentary film by Tiffany Hsiung about three former “comfort women” who were among the 200,000 girls and young women kidnapped and forced into military sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The film is produced by Anita Lee for the National Film Board of Canada.
The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan is a Korean non-governmental organization advocating the rights of the surviving comfort women and lobbying the Japanese government to take actions of a full apology and compensation.
The San Francisco Comfort Women memorial is a monument dedicated to comfort women before and during World War II. It is built in remembrance of the girls and women that were sexually enslaved by the Imperial Japanese Army through deceit, coercion, and brutal force. It is approximated that there were around 400,000 "comfort women" from Korea, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, the Philippines and other Asian countries. The site is located near the Saint Mary's Square, at the crossroads of San Francisco Chinatown and the Financial District. The statue "Comfort Women" Column of Strength, by sculptor Steven Whyte, is one of nine and the first sculpture placed in a major U.S. city to commemorate the comfort women.
Kim Bok-dong was a human rights activist that campaigned against sexual slavery and war rape. She was a young woman who was put into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army; a military that recruited girls between the ages of 10 and 18 years of age from colonized and occupied countries from the 1930s until the end of World War II. From age 14, she was put into comfort stations for eight years across different countries in Asia. Her experiences led her to become an activist; advocating the end of war-time sexual violence, anti-imperialism, workers' rights, and inter-Korean reconciliation. Along with the other "comfort women", she made the three-fold demand from the Japanese government: a formal state-level apology, reparations, and correction of Japanese history. In addition, Kim Bok-dong herself also supported other "comfort women" to step forward, and was a spokesperson in the "comfort women" movement. Kim Bok-dong died in Seoul, South Korea, in a hospital on January 28, 2019.
Chung Seo-woon (1924–2004) was a Korean comfort woman in the Japanese colonial era during World War II. The Japanese army invaded her home without warning and suddenly took her to Busan forcefully. For the next seven years, the Japanese Army transported her to Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and Indonesia. Chung Seo-woon later became a human rights activist, giving testimony in Japan and the United States and calling for an apology and compensation from Japan.
Gil Won-ok, also known as Grandma Gil, is an activist and former Korean comfort woman who has dedicated her life to demanding redress and an official apology from Japan for the military sexual violence that affected over 200,000 women during World War II.
Comfort Women: A New Musical is a musical about the Korean comfort women who were sold as sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. It is written and directed by Dimo Hyun Jun Kim, a South Korean theater director.
Yoon Mee-hyang is a South Korean human rights activist, politician, and author. She was the former head of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, an organization dedicated to advocacy for former comfort women, who were forced into sexual slavery during World War II. She is the author of 25 Years of Wednesdays: The Story of the "Comfort Women" and the Wednesday Demonstrations.
The Shimonoseki Trial was a legal trial between three Korean comfort women victims and seven forced laborers, part of the Korean Women's Volunteer Labor Corps from the City of Busan and the Japanese Government from 1992 to 1998. The trial marked the first-ever lawsuit against the Japanese government by Korean victims of the comfort women and forced labor systems within the Japanese legal system and resulted in the Japanese judicial system admitting that the comfort women system was the fault of the Japanese government. The initial ruling made by the Shimonoseki Branch of the Yamaguchi Prefectural Court on April 27, 1998 marked an end to the nearly six year-long battle in the Prefectural Court that started on December 25, 1992 ruling in favor of the plaintiffs. The final ruling of the case was made by the Supreme Court of Japan on March 25, 2003. It upheld the Appeals Court of Hiroshima's ruling rejecting the ruling of the Prefectural Court and denying financial compensation for the plaintiffs while acknowledging the reality of the comfort women system and its victims.
Ellen van der Ploeg, 84, from the Netherlands. During World War II, she lived with her family in the former Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Between 1943 and 1946, date at which she was liberated, Ellen lived in five different internment camps. When she was working in one of the camps, she was turned over to a comfort station by the Imperial Japanese forces. Soldiers would cut her food rationing if she did not work hard enough. They also ignored orders to use condoms, which led to her contracting a venereal disease.
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