Structure
| Formation | 1990 |
|---|---|
| Legal status | NGO |
| Purpose | to restore the rights of the women; to stop war crimes against women; to build peace in Asia |
| Headquarters | Mapo-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea |
Official language | Korean |
| Website | http://www.womenandwar.net/contents/main/main.asp |
The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (commonly known as The Korean Council) 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.
Since its foundation in 1990, the Korean Council has been operating on national and transnational stages. Within South Korea, the council has been helping the former comfort women and encouraging the Korean government to resolve the issue. At the same time, the council has been asserting responsibilities of Japan and bringing the issue to international human rights forum such as the UN Commission on Human Rights and the Asian Solidarity Conference. The movements of the council are directly concerned to recover the human rights of the victims of Japanese military sexual slavery, and are broadly in pursuit of preventing wartime crime against women and building peace.
The organization's official English name, The Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan is not a direct translation of its native language name (Korean : 한국정신대문제대책협의회; Hanja : 韓国挺身隊問題対策協議会; RR : Han-guk Jeongsindae Munje Daechaek Hyeobuihoe; MR : Han'guk Chŏngsindae Munje Taech'aek Hyŏpuihoe; Japanese romanization: Kankoku Teishin-tai Mondai Taisaku Kyōgikai). The phrase "women drafted for military sexual slavery" actually corresponds to the term Korean : 정신대; Hanja : 挺身隊; RR : jeongsindae (Japanese romanization: teishin-tai), which originally signified "volunteer corps" as used by the Japanese government, but later used to obliquely refer to Korean comfort women who serviced the Japanese army. This term jeongsindae (teishin-tai) literally means "voluntarily-submitting-body corps". [1] [2]
Former comfort women and activist Lee Yong-soo has expressed her strong dislike for the term “sexual slavery” because it makes her feel “dirty and embarrassed.” In her press conference on May 7, 2020, she reproached the Korean Council for using the term to seek international attention. [3] [4]
Comfort women (Korean : 위안부; Hanja : 慰安婦; RR : wianbu) are the victims of the Japanese military sexual slavery before and during World War II. Among the estimated total of 200,000 women, 80-90 percent were recruited from Korea [5] because of its status under Japanese colonization. There are 208 officially registered victims in South Korea, [6] although it is very likely that there are more unknown survivors.
The issue of the comfort women began to emerge only in the late 1980s with democratization. In a more open atmosphere, there was a group of progressive Christian women starting to inquire into the issue of comfort women. Subsequently, the claim of a Japanese official completely denying state involvement in the recruitment by laying the blame on the private traffickers triggered the formation of a coalition which established the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan in November 1990 under the leadership of Yun Chung-ok and Lee Hyo-chae . [7] The Korean Council was a unification of mostly women's groups including the Korea Women's Hotline and Korea Women's Associations United, and a few religious organizations such as the Buddhist Human Rights Committee and the National Council of Churches as well. [6]
In 1991, Kim Hak Sun, a former comfort woman, contacted the Korean Council and revealed her story on televised broadcast. Her initiative encouraged other survivors to share their experiences, so the Korean Council installed a hotline for them. Prompted by a series of revelations, the Ministry of Health and Welfare was established to officially recognize the victims and provide them financial aid, free health care, and the right to rent public housing. [8]
In January 1992, the Korean Council led a protest in front of the Japanese Prime Minister Miyazawa's hotel. Since then, the Wednesday Demonstration began to be held on every Wednesday. The Korean Council urged the Japanese government to take the following actions on behalf of the victims: (1) admission of forced draft of Korean women, (2) official apology, (3) fact-finding, (4) a monument, (5) compensation, and (6) history education. [8]
However, the Japanese government did not intend to comply with the demands. In the investigative report on the issue of comfort women in July 1992, Japan included apologies, yet insisted that "all claims were waived by post-war treaties." [8]
As of 1992, the Korean Council took the comfort women issue to the United Nations by being a participant in the UN Commission on Human Rights and its Sub-Commission as a member of the World Council of Churches, which accredited the Korean Council to attend session of the UN. The World Alliance of Reformed Churches and Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law & Development came to support the Korean Council as well. The request of the Korean Council to conduct a field mission was approved in the International Commission of Jurists, and two members were dispatched to South Korea, the Philippines, North Korea, and Japan. The conclusion of the mission was that "Japan violated international law and was under obligation to pay compensation to the victims." [6] Subsequently, there have been more recommendations from the UN Human Rights Council, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the International Labour Organization, and the International Commission of Jurists. The advocacy by the Korean Council also brought the resolution of the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993 and the World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, which contributed to publicize the issue of comfort women at an international level. [6]
As the council initiated the process of lobbying the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), it resolved to integrate human rights norms. The council was influenced by the concept of reparation by Theo van Boven, which suggests that reparation "not only includes material compensation but also restitution, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guaranteeing non-repetition." [8] According to his concept, the identity of the Korean Council was reframed as human rights advocacy. Following that, the representatives of the Korean Council filed a request for the indictment of the Japanese Imperial Army to the Tokyo Prosecutor's Office in response to Japan's rejection of providing compensations to individual victims in 1994. The legitimacy of the complaint was brought by van Boven's idea of "obligation to compensate for non-punishment". [8] However, the complaint was denied.
In 2000, the Korean Council submitted co-indictment for the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery with North Korea pursuing to clarify the crimes of the perpetrators and to restore the victims' dignity and justice. In the final decision of the tribunal, Hirohito, the Emperor of Japan during World War II, and others involved in the crime were convicted. [9]
In 1992, the Korean Council held the Asian Solidarity Conference in Seoul for the first time. Japan expressed its solidarity by participating in the Conference, and inviting Korean comfort women to Japan to present their testimonies in public. The Asian Solidarity Conference on the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery functioned as a forum for other victimized countries in Asia such as the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, and China to collaborate in devising strategies and directions. Since 1997, public forums were organized by the Korean Council in Geneva on wartime violence against women. Furthermore, the Korean Council included other cases of violation such as rapes perpetrated by military in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Sub-Saharan countries into the proceedings at the UN Commission on Human Rights and its Sub-Commission. [6]
The cooperation with North Korea has been the sole "channel of communication" [6] during the hostile relationship between the North and South in the early 1990s. The two Koreas collaborated from the Geneva forum to conferences in Tokyo and Beijing, and exchanged visits and held symposiums in Seoul and Pyongyang.
The Korean Council is mostly funded by private donations. According to the council, this illustrates "the financial and sociopolitical difficulties of a social minority involved in contesting patriarchal states with feminist visions for a more just society." [7]
Historically, the Korean Council conducted nationwide fund-raising campaigns in 1997 and 1998 while defying Asian National Peace Fund for Women, raised by private donations and criticized as an evasion of Japan's governmental responsibility for a valid compensation. As a result, each of the victims received 7,606,800 won, in addition to the government subsidies of 31,500,000 each. [8]
Since its foundation, the Korean Council has demanded an admission, an apology, and compensation by the Japanese government for the sexual slavery of Korean women. The objectives are outlined in 7 principal objectives:
1. Acknowledge the war crime
2. Reveal the truth in its entirely about the crimes of military sexual slavery
3. Make an official apology
4. Make legal reparations
5. Punish those responsible for the war crime
6. Accurately record the crime in history textbooks
7. Erect a memorial for the victims of the military sexual slavery and establish a historical museum [9]
"This is to restore the abused rights of the women : to stop wartime violence against women : to correct the distorted history between Korea and Japan : to prevent the reemerging of Japanese militarism : and to build peace in Asia and the world as a whole. [9] " - The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan
The Wednesday Demonstration was first held on January 8, 1992, in front of the Japanese Embassy in Korea. Since then, the Korean Council has been hosting the demonstration on every Wednesday at noon with other sympathizers and the survivors of the Japanese sexual slavery. The demonstration represents peace and human rights against war and gender-based violence. The victims have voiced to stop violence against women in the time of armed conflict and to revive justice and human rights. It also provides a forum for on-site education on the comfort women issue and a moment of solidarity under the cause of safeguarding justice. The Wednesday Demonstration marked its 1000th weekly protest on December 14, 2011. [9]
The Korean Council provides counseling, medical support, outdoor visits, arrangements and counseling for funeral procedures, and weekly get-together dinner to help the former military sexual slaves mostly in their old age. In addition, the council is in charge of recruiting and training volunteers to help the survivors heal their trauma. A shelter called "our home" is operated by the council for the survivors. [9]
The Korean Council has pressured the Korean Government to take legislative action to protect the rights of comfort women. A thorough investigation on the crime against comfort women was conducted in 1992 under supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "The Social Security Law for the Comfort Women of the Japanese Army During the Period of Japanese Colonial Rule" was passed in 1993, which guarantees each survivor priority in renting government housing, among other things. In 1997, "The New Immigration Law to Prohibit Japanese War Criminals from Entering Korea" was issued to forbid the entrance of war criminals to Korean. The Korean Council has been demanding the National Assembly to bring the issue of comfort women to international domain for a full apology and compensation from Japanese government. [9]
The Korean Council has attempted to spread the issue of comfort women throughout the world. [10] Since the Korean Council presented the issue to the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in 1992, recommendations to the Japanese government to fulfill its legal responsibilities have been issued by international organizations such as UNCHR, the International Commission of Jurists, and the ILO Committee of Experts. The Korean Council also organizes an Asian Women's Solidarity Conference every year with other victimized Asian states. The 15th Conference in 2018 was held from March 7 to 9 in Seoul.
In order to recover the human rights of women that have been infringed on by war, the Korean Council opened "The Education Center of the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery Japan" to educate future generations. In the education center, there is the Place of Repose which offers education and healthcare programs for the former comfort women, the Education Room which provides history and human rights, the Exhibition Room which exhibits the articles, historical photographs and photographs of ongoing human rights movements, and the Library which preserves and lends domestic and foreign documents, pictures, and films. In addition, there are various educational programs for students and teachers, civil organization activists, and domestic and foreign visitors which present testimonies of the former comfort women, video footage, and lectures on human rights of women with respect to the comfort women issue. [10]
The Korean Council is promoting the 100 Million Signatures Campaign for the Resolution of the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery Issue. [9]
The Korean Council's War and Women's Human Rights Center was founded in 2001 to "stop violence against women in armed conflict regions that is happening around the world today by advancing the comfort women issue." [9] The center is mainly used as a site for history education as well as for campaigns and exhibitions. To preserve the truth of the war crime and provide peace and human rights education, the Korean Council raised funds for a museum exhibiting and recording the council's movement. The museum was completed in 2012 after nine years of construction, and has been informing visitors through exhibitions and archival material. The story of the comfort women is displayed in video footage, personal audio testimonies, photographs, objects, written documentation, and panels. At the end of the exhibition, a tour guide discusses the ongoing movements of the survivors to resolve the issue. [11]
The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan supports Comfort Women: A New Musical. [12]
In May 2020, former comfort woman Lee Yong-soo, publicly accused Yoon Mee-hyang and the Korean Council of having exploited her and the other former comfort women for political and financial gain. Lee accused Yoon and the Korean Council of having exploited former comfort woman Kim Bok-dong by sending her to tour in the United States for fundraising, despite being her having been in poor health. [13] Lee also announced that she would no longer be attending the weekly Wednesday demonstration, which draw large numbers of supporters, especially students. Lee said that the demonstrations taught the younger generations "hatred" in a time when Japan and South Korea should befriend one another to resolve their issues. [14] However, Lee Yong-soo participated in the Wednesday demonstration again from March 2023. [15]
The group has also been accused of having pressured the former comfort women into not accepting money from the Japanese government under a deal made in 2015, which was intended to resolve the issue. [16]
There have a number of significant disputes between various Koreanic and Japonic states. The two regions have a long history of relations as immediate neighbors that has been marked with conflict. One of the most significant issues is the Japanese colonization of Korea that began with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910 and ended with the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II.
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, Netherlands, 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.
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.
Japan–South Korea relations refers to the diplomatic relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea. As the Sea of Japan and the Korea Strait geographically separate the two nations, political interactions date back from the 6th century when the kingdom of Baekje officially established relations with Japan. During the ancient era, the southern region of the Korean Peninsula often served as the closest port for Japan to engage in economic trade and cultural exchange to and from mainland Asia. By 1910, Korea would become a colony of Japan until 1945.
Yayori Matsui was a Japanese journalist and women's rights activist noted for her work to raise awareness of sex slaves and sex tourism in post-war Asia. In 1961 she began work as a journalist for the newspaper Asahi Shimbun, retiring in 1994 to work as a full-time social activist, founding numerous women's organizations and writing on gender inequality in Japan and on sex crimes committed by the Japanese Imperial Army, namely against the comfort women of the Second World War. Her work culminated in the 2000 Tokyo Women's War Crimes Tribunal, a tribunal held to gain some form of justice for the victims of Japanese military sexual slavery.
Events from the year 1991 in South Korea.
The Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation is a Taiwanese non-profit organization working to rescue and counsel female victims of human trafficking, prostitution and sexual or domestic violence.
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 Statue of Peace, often shortened to Sonyeosang in Korean or Shōjo-zō in Japanese and sometimes called the Comfort Woman Statue, is a symbol of the victims of sexual slavery, known euphemistically as comfort women, by the Japanese military during World War II. The Statue of Peace was first erected in Seoul to urge the Japanese government to apologize to and honour the victims. However, it has since become a site of representational battles among different parties.
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 Bahay na Pula is a former hacienda in San Ildefonso, Bulacan in the Philippines. The site is remembered for the mass rapes and murders committed by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The Japanese military murdered all of the men and boys in the adjacent Mapaniqui, Candaba, Pampanga, and forced over 100 women and girls into sexual slavery, confining and raping them in the Red House.
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.
Kim Soon-duk (1921–2004), also known as Kim Tŏk-chin, was a Korean comfort woman who became one of the best-known survivors due to her vivid paintings that depicted life as 'comfort women.' She participated in movements against sex slavery including the Wednesday Demonstration. She also travelled abroad to attend exhibits that displayed her paintings, participated in international speaking tours, and testified about her experiences.
Kang Duk-kyung (1929–1997) was a Korean comfort woman in the Japanese colonial era during World War II. She was captured and forcefully taken into sexual slavery by a Japanese soldier in the middle of the night. After liberation in 1945, she could not return to her hometown because of what had happened to her as a comfort woman. Kang Duk-kyung later became a human rights activist. She started to live in the House of Sharing in late 1992. While staying at the House of Sharing, she participated in an art therapy program where she began painting. Her art centers on her experiences as a 'comfort woman.'
The People's Tribunal on War Crimes by South Korean Troops during the Vietnam War was a citizen's tribunal organised by South Korean social organizations including Minbyun, Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation, The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan during 21–22 April 2018.
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.
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 1992–98. 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.
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