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,a euphemism that 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,East Timor,New Guinea and other countries into sexual enslavement for Japanese troops;however,the majority of the women were from Korea. Many women died or died by 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. However,apologies from Japanese officials have been criticized as insincere.
Lady Vengeance is a 2005 South Korean neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Park Chan-wook. The film is the third and final installment in Park's Vengeance Trilogy,following Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and Oldboy (2003). It stars Lee Young-ae as Lee Geum-ja,a woman released from prison after serving the sentence for a murder she did not commit. The film tells her story of revenge against the real murderer.
Diplomatic relations between South Korea and the United States commenced in 1949. The United States helped establish the modern state of South Korea,officially the Republic of Korea,and fought on its UN-sponsored side in the Korean War (1950–1953). During the subsequent decades,South Korea experienced tremendous economic,political and military growth.
Lee Chun-jae is a South Korean serial killer known for committing the Hwaseong serial murders. Between 1986 and 1994,Lee murdered fifteen women and girls in addition to committing numerous sexual assaults,predominantly in Hwaseong,Gyeonggi Province,and the surrounding areas. The murders,which remained unsolved for thirty years,are considered to be the most infamous in modern South Korean history and were the inspiration for the 2003 film Memories of Murder.
Kenneth Allen McDuff was an American serial killer from Texas. In 1966,McDuff and an accomplice kidnapped and murdered three teenagers who were visiting from California. He was given three death sentences for these crimes but avoided execution after the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Furman v. Georgia. He was resentenced to life and was paroled in 1989. Between October 1989 and March 1992,McDuff raped and killed at least six women,receiving another death sentence and was later executed in 1998.
The 1995 Okinawa rape incident occurred on September 4,1995,when three U.S. servicemen,22-year-old U.S. Navy Seaman Marcus Gill,21-year-old U.S. Marines Rodrico Harp,and 20-year-old Kendrick Ledet,all serving at Camp Hansen on Okinawa,rented a van and kidnapped a 12-year-old Okinawan girl. They beat her,duct-taped her eyes and mouth shut,and bound her hands. Gill and Harp then raped her,while Ledet claimed he only pretended to do so due to fear of Gill.
Anti-American sentiment in Korea began with the earliest contact between the two nations and continued after the division of Korea and Korean War. Despite this,as of 2011,74% of South Koreans have a favorable view of the U.S.,making it one of the most pro-American countries in the world.
The Yangju highway incident,also known as the Yangju training accident or Highway 56 Accident,occurred on June 13,2002,in Yangju,Gyeonggi-do,South Korea. A United States Army armored vehicle-launched bridge,returning to base in Uijeongbu on a public road after training maneuvers in the countryside,struck and killed two 14-year-old South Korean schoolgirls,Shin Hyo-sun (Korean: 신효순) and Shim Mi-seon (심미선).
Dong Yi is a 2010 South Korean historical television series starring Han Hyo-joo in the title role,along with Ji Jin-hee,Lee So-yeon and Bae Soo-bin. The series centers on the love story between King Sukjong and Choe Suk-bin. It aired from 22 March to 12 October 2010 on MBC TV's Mondays and Tuesdays at 21:55 time slot for 60 episodes.
Gina Kim is a filmmaker and academic. Kim's five feature-length films and short films have garnered acclaim through screenings at most major film festivals and at venues such as the MOMA,Centre Pompidou and the Smithsonian. According to Film Comment,Kim has "a terrific eye,a gift for near-wordless storytelling,a knack for generating a tense gliding rhythm between images and sounds,shots and scenes,and for yielding a quality of radiance in her actors". Between 2004–2007 and 2013–2014,Kim taught film production and theory classes at Harvard University,being the first Asian woman teaching in her department. Kim was also a member of the Jury for the 66th Venice Film Festival and the Asian Pacific Screen Awards in 2009. Currently,Kim is a professor at the UCLA School of Theater,Film,and Television.
During and following the Korean War,the United States military used regulated prostitution services in South Korean military camptowns. Despite prostitution being illegal since 1948,women in South Korea were the fundamental source of sexual services for the US military and a component of Korean-American relations. The women in South Korea who served as prostitutes are known as kijichon (기지촌) women,also called as "Korean Military Comfort Women",and were visited by the US military,Korean soldiers,and Korean civilians. The prostitutes were from Korea,Philippines,China,Vietnam,Thailand,Sri Lanka,Nepal,Indonesia,and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
U.S. soldiers committed acts of rape against French women during and after the liberation of France in the later stages of World War II. The sociologist J. Robert Lilly of Northern Kentucky University estimates that 4,500 instances of sexual assault had been transgressed by U.S servicemen in France from June 1944 to the end of the war in May 1945.
Lee Youn-taek is a poet,dramatist,and producer.
Ahn Hee-jung,also known as An Hee-jung,is a former South Korean politician and convicted felon. He served as the 36th and 37th Governor of South Chungcheong Province. He stepped down from his role as governor and announced his retirement from public life after acknowledging accusations that he sexually assaulted his aide Kim Ji-eun on multiple occasions. In February 2019,he was sentenced to a three-and-a-half-year prison term for sexual assault.
Capital punishment in Hawaii ended in 1957 when it was still an organized incorporated territory of the United States. About 75 people were executed by the government,all for the crime of murder,and all by hanging. Additionally,during and after World War II,at least seven U.S. servicemen were executed by the United States Armed Forces by order of a general court martial.
Kijichon (Korean: 기지촌),literally camptown,refers to the towns surrounding military bases of the United States Forces Korea (USFK). They are generally located in more rural areas,many of which are near the Korean demilitarized zone. The inhabitants often do not interact with Korean society at large due to the stigma associated with living and working in kijichon. In terms of Korean citizens,kijichon are primarily populated by the poor and otherwise marginalized. The towns exist mainly to provide prostitution to American soldiers,which was deemed as "necessary for soldiers to continue protecting South Korea,and was beneficial for economic development" in kijichon. All of the businesses in these towns that explicitly cater to "U.S. military personnel must be licensed by the Korea Special Tourist Association." This cooperation with the government and the fact that many bases are located near the demilitarized zone makes it easier to conceal the sex work and G.I. crime from the general population.
My Sister's Place is an advocacy and counseling group founded in March 1986 in Uijeongbu,South Korea. The group is a non-profit government organization that supports women involved and affected by prostitution in military camp towns. It focuses on improving the lives of women who have entered the sex industry in and around U.S. military base camp towns. Working with women from diverse backgrounds—Korean-born,Russian,and Filipina women—Durebang challenges militarism and exploitation in the camp town sex industry. Durebang provides online counseling,community outreach,English classes,Hangul classes,and legal rights classes
The Women Outside:Korean Women and the U.S. Military is a 60 minute 1995 documentary film created by film/video makers Hye Jung Park and J.T. Takagi. The film details the experiences of South Korean women who work in U.S. military camptown brothels,bars,or clubs,exposing how the South Korean government and U.S. military mutually benefit from the sexual exploitation of women.
The main island of Okinawa accounts for 0.6% of Japan's land mass,though about 75% of United States forces in Japan are stationed in the Okinawa prefecture,encompassing about 18% of the main island of Okinawa. Following the ratification of the revised U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1960,massive protests of US military presence in Okinawa followed across Japan with an estimated 30 million Japanese citizens participating,known in Japan as the Anpo protest movement. With such a strong focus of United States Forces Japan in Okinawa,residents face economic problems of the highest unemployment in Japan as well as struggle for investment from outside businesses. Immense public opposition in Okinawa is still met with difficulty to create change for Okinawan citizens,while 25,000 American troops remain in Okinawa.
Rape,among other acts of wartime sexual violence,was frequently committed against female Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War. It was an aspect of the various human rights abuses perpetrated by the United States and South Korea,as well as by local Vietnamese combatants. According to American political scientist Elisabeth Jean Wood,the sexual violation of women by American military personnel was tolerated by their commanders. American professor Gina Marie Weaver stated that not only were documented crimes against Vietnamese women by American soldiers ignored during the international legal discourse that occurred immediately after the conflict,but modern feminists and other anti-war rape campaigners,as well as historians,have continued to dismiss them.
