在台灣，突然因為小林善紀的漫畫而興起一股為台灣慰安婦講話的熱潮，而以前數年來為慰安婦打抱不平的人，就以王清峰、呂秀蓮等為首，可是某黨有些立委興起愛台灣人的念頭，卻是因為阿扁的國策顧問許文龍發言不當，而找到攻擊的落腳點，而模糊真正的對象，未能及早向日本軍國主義找公道，這些急統的人士，該落實台灣人的身份與台灣共存亡才好，不要有如大陸民運人士魏京生所述︰台灣的政治人物，真沒格調，巴結中共，亦不會有好下場…，大陸只有實施民主主義，台灣才有希望。
魏京生訪台 痛批台灣政治人物猛拍大陸馬屁
2001-02-26
應民進黨前主席施明德之邀來台的大陸知名民運人士魏京生，25日深夜搭機訪台進行訪問，魏京生痛批台灣的政治人物不應該過度拍大陸的馬屁。
經過十幾個鐘頭的長途飛行，大陸民運人士魏京生，臉上看不出有任何的疲倦 ，這次魏京生來台訪問，除了拜會施明德外，也會與台北市長馬英九進行一場政治議題的對談。相當關心兩岸問題的魏京生，痛批現在的台灣政治人物猛抱對岸的大腿，太不像話。
而對於已經開跑的小三通，魏京生也有嚴詞批評。魏京生認為，台灣的政治人物爭相前往大陸訪問，是一種不對的做法，因為台灣不需要過度去拍對岸的馬屁，至於兩岸間的關係，也不見得會因此獲得改善。
改變兩岸關係 魏京生：讓步是向對方示弱
2001-02-26
民進黨前主席施明德與中國民運人士魏京生兩人將由27日起展開民主與人權的對談，魏京生26日在記者會時表示，台灣政治人物以為跟中國國台辦的課長、主任談一談就可以保障台灣安全，他說，改善關係不是一廂情願，一直讓步只是向對方示弱，他認為，兩岸交往的過程中，保持人格才是最重要的。
由新文化文教基金會所主辦的「施明德與魏京生對談之旅—展現新世紀的民主與人權」活動，將自27日起展開9場對談，施明德與魏京生兩人26日則共同出席記者會，說明這個對談活動的構想。
對於兩岸關係，魏京生在致詞時表示，台灣的民主還是很初步，還需要學習、改善，心態也需要調整，他認為，台灣的人並不是都按著民主的價值來處世，他話鋒一轉指出，台灣都沒有關心大陸人民怎麼想，下意識的還是有專制思想，以為官方的力量很大，台灣政治人物以為跟中國國台辦的課長、主任談一談就可以保障台灣的安全，他認為，台灣的政治人物還是看著民意來做秀，所以台灣的媒體責任相當重大。
在媒體的追問之下，魏京生再深入闡述他的想法，他指出，改善兩岸關係不是一廂情願，他舉例指出，如果兩個人有仇，難道有一方有意願改善關係就可以嗎？這只是向對方示弱的表現，會讓對方看不起，中國會以為不斷施放壓力、放幾顆導彈就可以逼迫台灣，所以在交往的過程中，保持人格是最重要的。
事實上，本會於 1997 年開始，就不斷向國際為慰安婦請命，而自印尼發生華裔婦女有數千人於暴動受土著強暴事件之後，亦積極向世界各國領袖求助，而澳洲政府的適時伸出援手，則是有目共睹。
至於台灣慰安婦事件（見參考資料），在國際不受重視，乃是國人自曝其短，當時白色恐怖時代，民意不振所致，現在熱潮再度把阿嬤拉出檯面，是一種政治殘酷的表現。我研究聯合國現存的檔案，有談到日本第二次大戰期間，慰安婦的問題，是 Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 之 Watanabe Kazuko 女士於 1994 年提 出來的報告，而台灣有人對二二八紀念日相當感冒的時候，對此更久遠的慰安婦事件，更乏人問津了。
現在我把其內容大略提一下，供大家參考。
於 1991 年 12 月 6 日，韓國籍的一群婦女向日本政府提出控訴，揭開駭人聽聞 的慰安婦事件，這件事隔 55 年的舊件被提出訴訟，乃根據婦女人權的最基本訴求 。
在第二次大戰期間，日本軍人認為韓國婦女深受儒家思想影響，能夠自我犧牲，而甘心做為日本軍人的慰藉，故大量徵用韓籍女人約二十萬人之譜，做為隨軍看護，有少數做為護理人員，而大多數的少女，由十七歲到二十歲做為慰安婦，有七萬到八萬人被派到亞洲各地。
慰安婦來自日本本土、中國、台灣、菲律賓、印尼或荷蘭，韓籍慰安婦佔全數的百分之八十，這種現象，來自日本占領國與殖民帝國思想做為後盾。
初期有些制度，徵用各地來的貧苦人家少女，後來就急便取材於占領地區，放寬條件，招募慰安婦，而荷蘭與日本本土的姑娘列為第一級，由軍官享用，餘則歸納士兵，做所謂公共廁所“ sanitary public toilets”。
在戰區，強徵慰安婦的來源，相當殘酷，先是強暴，再是強迫進入臨時慰安所供士兵洩慾，其下場最不好，一般不久會生病死亡，亦少有回到家鄉的結局。
東方婦女的保守心態，於戰後常隱姓埋名，鬱鬱而終，鮮有人敢站出來爭取賠償與道歉，由於各地慰安所的管理好壞不一，有些比較合乎一點人性，能領到津貼，有些則不了了之，更有部份的慰安所以恐怖暴力相向。
當時慰安婦的來源多重，買賣、徵用、妓女、自願，或外來特殊罪犯子女亦有之；韓國慰安婦的來源比較充足，多數為貧苦農家少女，經父母同意入伙，而少部 份有自願參予以取得生計所需。
當時慰安婦的設立，在於日本軍人於南京大屠殺之後，發現軍人姦淫中國婦人的情形，令人驚怖，領導階級對於日本軍在國外如此放肆，強暴老少婦人的行徑深感害怕，加諸國際間不斷的譴責，讓好面子的日本皇室無地自容，故有人倡議“隨軍妓女”的制度，這是慰安婦的初步構想。若當時的日軍能夠以日本少女做為慰安婦的來源，不涉及他國徵用、占用、或擄用，就不會引發國際公憤。
日本人在朝鮮地區，甚為隨便，對韓國少女任意加以侮辱，要求鄉村婦人派少女到皇軍軍營做神聖的工作，這些少女，在儒家禮教的影響下，常常承受不斷的侮辱而不敢聲張，有許多人移居日本而終老於茲。
有為數不少的慰安婦被棄置在慰安所自生自滅，不少日軍戰敗撤退之後，在倉皇中，日軍顧不得隨軍慰安婦，或加以殺害，推入火坑，棄置不顧，有外來的慰安婦不熟悉當地環境，如朝鮮少女在中國或印尼等地，常常被迫自求生存或投降戰勝國。
日本籍慰安婦常會扮演母親的角色，深得軍人的喜愛，現在日本有許多媽媽桑亦是有類似的慰藉作用，故除了性服務之外，其扮演母親的心理治療有相當的受肯定，這是第一級的慰安婦。
荷蘭慰安婦，則可滿足日軍的虛榮征服心態，是第二級標準，台灣慰安婦應列入第三級，而以下則是韓國、菲律賓與印尼為第四級，這種分級見諸於日本民間的傳聞，為文獻所無。
有關台灣原住民少女受到欺壓的問題相當嚴重，於霧社事件前後時，台灣原住 民的頑抗暴政有其不可忽略的一面，比之台灣漢族士紳之容易受教，有其差距，故 日本徵用原住民壯丁特別多，成立“高砂特種部隊”，於作戰地區屢創戰果，其歷 史考據日本學者有詳細紀錄，我在此不便敘述，以免誤導，成為政治仇日意識，新 生代日本人與新生代台灣的世界觀漸趨一致，未來的世界建立在互信互諒的基礎上 。
歷史的恩怨，給歷史學家一些空間做客觀評論，老帳新算，算也算不完，在歷史的罪惡事實做反省，方是做為下一代傳承最好的教育。
以韓國慰安婦為主的訴訟，雖然得不到日本政府的正式道歉與賠償，但是透過其民間組織的回應，亦給予日本民眾教育的機會。
台灣應適時檢討的是：
（一）何以中華民國於對日以德報怨之後，無法適時提出日本政府對慰安婦道歉的要求。
（二）所謂慰安婦事件亦是台灣淪為殖民地的結果，與外來政權的統治有直接的關係，而“外來政權”又是何者？
（三）在中共未能落實真正民主、人權、自由的條件之下，中共的對台威嚇，是否必須檢討“外來政權”的回顧與謹慎。
（四）在台灣的族群是否能真正自命為台灣人，如果不是？則台灣四百年與台灣五十年的意義何在？
（五）愛台灣人的定義為何？如何才是真正愛台灣？
（六）大中國主義、地球村思想與台灣人民族主義必須加以檢視。
（七）台灣的中國政策的確要很快的定案，以免夜長夢多，這樣台灣人才能有所因應。
此份報告中，我並未逐字翻譯，只是本中深髓加以個人評述，自然會有許多不同意見產生，此亦是民主自由發言的現象，不過有一點可以確定的是，儘管現階段台灣經濟有些不振，但是享受民主、自由、人權的方便，則是台灣人不願放棄的共同點。為了求真，附英文原件於後。
The following article is provided courtesy of the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. You may copy and distribute this article freely online, but please leave this header attached. For information on subscriptions or back issues, please contact:
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E-mail: tfenton@igc.orgPlease note that the power of this article is greatly enhanced in the printed version in the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars by eight exceptionally fine photographs by Ito Takashi, four from the book Chongshindae chaeryojip 4, and one art piece by Shimada Yoshiko. The photos are accompanied by long captions telling in more personal detail the poignant stories of these women. Although it is generally true that the written word is made more effective in the Bulletin by the accompanying graphics, this is particularly true in this case.
Mlitarism, Colonialism, and the Trafficking of Women: “Comfort Women”Forced into Sexual Labor for Japanese Soldiers
by Watanabe Kazuko
Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars,
vol. 26, no. 4, Oct.-Dec. 1994On 6 December 1991 Korean women who identified themselves as “military comfort women” filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government for violating their human rights. They demanded an official apology, some compensatory payment to survivors in lieu of full reparation, a thorough investigation of their cases, the revision of Japanese school textbooks identifying this issue as part of the colonial oppression of the Korean people, and the building of a memorial museum. With this action these women finally started to break their silence and disclose the sexual war crimes committed by the Japanese Imperial Army almost fifty years ago.
The term jugun ianfu,“military comfort woman,”is a euphemism for enforced military sex laborer or slave for the Japanese Imperial Army in the name of Emperor Hirohito. The term was coined by the Japanese government, military officials, and sexual industry agents, all hoping to obscure the dreadful reality behind the term. The women were originally called“teishintai,”which means “voluntary corps,” with the Confucian connotation of self-victimization. According to Yun Chung-ok, the founder of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Sexual Military Slavery by Japan, in this context the term also conveyed the more specific meanings of“drafting of women for sexual service to Japanese troops” and “patriotic voluntary military troops.”It was felt that Korean women would feel more obligated by the connotations of self-sacrifice in the term teishintai because they were educated in the Confucian tradition. In reality the practice of“military comfort women” suggests not only the institutionalized, collective, systematic rape of Korean and other women by Japanese soldiers but also trafficking in women. Moreover, one person who witnessed what happened at the time, military doctor Aso Tetsuo, commented that Korean women were treated as if they were inhuman“emale ammunition”and often referred to as“sanitary public toilets.”
War often violates human rights, but the case of the so-called military“comfort women”must be one of the cruelest of such violations. The historical example of“comfort women”teaches us how war perpetuates the exploitation of women and the violation of their human rights. The number of victims involved is estimated as nearly 200,000, though it is possible that the figures are even higher. It reminds us that systematic rape, institutionalized prostitution, and sexual slavery as well as war crimes were not only practiced in the past but can still be seen near military bases around the world such as those near Davao, Naha, and Phnom Penh. The collective rape in the former Yugoslavia is another form of war crime. Thus war and sexual exploitation are closely related in their violence against women that cuts across sex, gender, race, ethnic, and class lines.
The use of the term “comfort women”is obviously itself a travesty, and it would certainly be more accurate to refer to the women who did this work as“enforced military sex laborers or slaves,”as Pak Fam (a Korean activist living in Japan) and the Association for Anti-Prostitution Activity suggest. Nevertheless, I have used the term“comfort women”in this article because this remains the way they are most commonly referred to. I would prefer to at least encase the term in quotes to register my disapproval of it, but I have not done so because that would be cumbersome if it were done throughout the article.
Although Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipina, Indonesian, as well as Dutch women also worked as“comfort women,”the article focuses on Korean women, not only because they were the majority--80 percent--and have already formed a political movement, but also because the colonial and imperial system is more clearly evident in their case. The article has, in fact, grown out of the actions of Japanese and Korean-Japanese women's groups concerned with the“comfort women”issue. I have been following their movements closely as a Japanese woman and thus as both a victim and a victimizer. I am indebted to members of these groups for helping me prepare the article by supplying me with their materials, ideas, and life stories.
Disclosures by Comfort Women
At the meetings and interviews organized by the Military Comfort Women Issue Uriyosong Network around the December 1991 lawsuit, Kim Hak-soon, sixty-eight, was the only plaintiff who revealed her name. In tears, she related her experiences as a comfort woman, explaining that her decision was prompted by the fact that since all had died she no longer had any close family members who would be ashamed of her past. Kim Hak-soon reported:“When I was seventeen years old, the Japanese soldiers came along in a truck, beat us, and then dragged us into the back.... I was told that if I were drafted I could earn lots of money at the textile company, and that it was also the emperor's order. I was taken to China to serve as a comfort woman for Japanese soldiers at military bases. I was raped on that first day, and it never stopped for a single day for the next three months.”Often forced to accommodate dozens of soldiers in a day, Kim tried to flee three times. Twice she was caught and severely beaten, and finally on the third attempt she escaped with the help of a Korean man. They later married, but she lost her husband and children during the Korean War.
In an interview Kim Hak-soon explained:
I was born as a woman but never lived as a woman....I suffer from a bitterness I do not know how to overcome. I only want to ask the Japanese government not to go to war again. I feel sick when I am close to a man. Not just Japanese men but all men--even my own husband, who saved me from the brothel--have made me feel this way. I shiver when I see the Japanese flag. Because it carried that flag, I hated the airplane I took to come to Japan. I've kept trying to disclose the facts....Why should I feel ashamed? I don't have to feel ashamed.
Since then significant political actions and campaigns around military comfort women have been on the increase, and hundreds of former comfort women have told similar stories. However, the Japanese government initially denied its involvement and rejected their demands for apologies and compensation, which infuriated the survivors of sexual slavery and motivated them to reveal their pasts and appeal through the courts.
On 13 April 1992 six more Korean women sued the Japanese government. One of them revealed how Korean women were captured and drafted from school. Shim Mija, a South Korean, was said to have rebelled against the Japanese occupation armies by embroidering morning glories instead of the Japanese national flower, cherry blossoms, thus symbolizing that the Japanese government would wither in the evening. She was taken away from her school by the police, who then tortured and raped her. When she regained consciousness, she found herself already in a brothel in Japan. For the next six years she was forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers.
In December 1992 a public hearing was held by a network of groups working on this issue in Tokyo. Former comfort women from six countries testified before a panel that included Theo van Boven, an expert on international law and human rights and a special rapporteur for a United Nations subcommission on protecting minorities. One Chinese woman fainted, overcome by pain and anger, and South and North Korean women who once shared a brothel hugged each other on the stage. Jeanne O'Hearn, a Dutch woman and the first European woman to testify as a comfort woman, did so in front of her daughter. She calmly reported that two hundred Dutch women were forced to provide sex in Java. This event was broadcast on TV news programs in Japan. After this public hearing, the Filipina Comfort Women Core Group organized in the Philippines and filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government. Filipina women can locate brothels and have important documents to prove their claims because most of them were not destroyed after the war.
Supported by various human rights groups, on 5 April 1993 Song Siin-do, a seventy-one-year-old Korean living in Japan, filed a lawsuit against the government in the Tokyo District Court: She gave birth in a brothel and her children were left behind in China when she fled to Japan after several years of forced sex labor in China. Her goal has been to change the perpetuation of sexual abuse of women, sexual exploitation, and war crimes under imperialism and colonialism; she has not asked for compensation.
Song Siin-do was also one of the survivors of violence against women who testified on 12 March 1994 at a public hearing of the Asian Tribunal on Women's Human Rights in Tokyo, organized by the Asian Women Human Rights Council and the Women's Human Rights Committee of Japan. Held after the women's human rights tribunal at the Vienna World Human Rights Conference in June 1993, this Asian tribunal brought female victims from other Asian countries to Japan to testify. These included survivors of the trafficking of women from the Philippines and Thailand who had worked as prostitutes in Japan, as well as sexual slaves for the Japanese military abroad and victims of war crimes. The “military comfort women” issue was recognized as a violation of women's human rights.
History of Comfort Women
Many historians and activists in Korea and Japan have worked to reclaim these women's pasts, reconceptualizing this violation of human rights and historicizing the Japanese army's explicit military policy of wartime prostitution. Research shows that the modern Japanese system of prostitution for soldiers began as early as the turn of the century. In the invasion of Siberia starting in 1918 the Japanese military took Japanese prostitutes with them but then left them behind. Most of these women, daughters of poor farmers, had been sold into prostitution by their families and became prostitutes called karayukisan, foreign-bound (literally China-bound) women.
In the 1920s, as part of Japan's imperial policies after the colonization of Korea in 1910, the Japanese Imperial Army began to mobilize Korean women as physical laborers or as enforced sex laborers. In particular, beginning with the Japanese invasion of China in 1932, the recruiting of Korean women as prostitutes was gradually institutionalized to arouse soldiers' fighting spirit, provide them with an outlet for the frustration and fear fostered by hierarchical military life, and, ostensibly, prevent random rapes. Since the official pretext of the war was that Japan was saving other Asian nations from colonization by Western countries, the Korean comfort women were needed to prevent Japanese soldiers from sexually abusing and collectively raping local Chinese women as they did during the Nanjing Massacre in 1937. The procurement of comfort women was institutionalized to avoid atrocities that would damage the reputation of the Japanese army.
At the beginning of World War II, the Japanese army brought Japanese prostitutes with them, but many of them were suffering from venereal diseases and infected the Japanese soldiers. So Japanese brokers recruited Korean village girls, seventeen to twenty years old, from poor families. Toward the end of the war, the supply of women was enlarged by more indiscriminate kidnapping of women aged fourteen to thirty, including married women. Under the enforcement of the Military Compulsory Draft Act in 1943, more women were taken by the Japanese Imperial Army; by then the number had reached approximately 200,000, among whom 70,000 to 80,000 were sent as comfort women to the front lines in Asia.
The Japanese government initially denied its involvement and rejected the former comfort women's demands for apologies and compensation, which infuriated the survivors of sexual slavery and motivated them to reveal their past and appeal through the courts.
At the end of World War II, most survivors of military sexual slavery were not informed of Japan's defeat. During Japan's retreat, some of them were deserted by the Japanese army, some were massacred, and others were driven into trenches or caves and either bombed or gunned down. Some of the women who returned home killed themselves when they were unable to overcome the bitter memories and shame; others survived in silence. Some of the former comfort women were obliged to support themselves by working as prostitutes in postwar Japan.
Historically the emperor system and legal prostitution strengthened the double standard in Japan. The institution of prostitution was not legally prohibited until 1957. Enforcing respect for the emperor was used as part of the colonization of Asian people. Sixth-grade girls in Seoul's primary schools were drafted as teishintai laborers, called the emperor's children. A former Japanese teacher in Korea, Ikeda Masae, reported that“girls joined the `comfort girls' corps of their own will by either persuading their parents or overcoming opposition from their family members.”
Comfort Women and the Trafficking of Women
The testimony of former comfort women and documents on them show how women were recruited by force, kidnapped from factories and farms, or taken away because of their rebellious attitude toward Japanese colonization. Each woman was made to serve an average of thirty to forty soldiers per day, with the soldiers waiting in line outside her small room. Women who were not submissive were brutally beaten and tortured, and escape was impossible due to strict surveillance. Japanese soldiers were reminded that women were their common property.
Comfort women were usually placed in hierarchies according to class and nationality. Many Korean women seem to have come from lower-class worker and farmer families. Korean and other Asian women were assigned to lower-ranking soldiers, while Japanese and European women were for higher-ranking officers.
The institution of comfort women was a public practice. A document discovered in Washington, D.C. discloses how a civilian brothel owner who was captured in Burma applied to the Japanese army headquarters in Pyongyang for permission to transport the comfort girls. He took Korean girls he purchased from Pusan to Burma with tickets provided by the Japanese army. In another example, because of the shortage of comfort women toward the end of Word War II, Korean village leaders were ordered to send young women to participate in“important business for the Imperial Army.”
Most of the Korean comfort women were forced to lose their own nationality, called by Japanese names, and forbidden to speak Korean. A notice hanging at the entrance to a brothel on the outskirts of Shanghai stated: “We welcome courageous soldiers who are on duty for the holy war; Yamato nadeshiko (literally the flower called‘wild pinks of Yamato,’meaning‘our flowerlike women of Japan’) obediently dedicate their minds and bodies to you.”
Those survivors, wherever they may be living, have been physically and emotionally battered. They suffer from physical health problems such as sterility, headaches, asthma, insomnia, and fears associated with their bitter experience. Nervous breakdowns are also common.
Why did it take fifty years to disclose this issue? Why have comfort women kept silent so long? These women's stories did not surface after the war in part because the Japanese government destroyed military documents and in part because many Korean women themselves tried not to face what happened to them. This may be a reaction in common with rape or sexual harassment cases where women often remain silent because of fear of further humiliation or being attacked again. A Korean-Japanese former comfort woman, Pe Bon-gi, isolated herself in Okinawa without any welfare support, rejecting attention. In 1991 she was found dead in her small cottage. Her story became known through a nonfiction work, Akagawara no ie (A house with a red roof), written by Kawada Ayako, who was one of the few who helped her during her life.
Confucian taboos put a priority in Korea on women's chastity, thus inhibiting women from speaking about their own sexual terror. Confucianism trapped women into perpetuating both the patriarchal system that created a double standard and the chastity myth. Moreover, Confucianism allowed men to continue to own women as private property. In the beginning women often had only two alternatives: either they could become comfort women or they could kill themselves to protect their own chastity--which Korean Confucianism taught them to consider more important than their lives. To live was to be guilty. They thought loss of chastity was shameful to their families. Some survivors committed suicide or stayed away from their families and led solitary lives. Thus these women suffered doubly and triply from sexual discrimination.“I was afraid to reveal my past for fifty years, but now I realize I've got only a short life left, and I will tell the whole world,”said Kim Hak-soon, the first former comfort woman to reveal her name in court.
In Japan women tend to be divided into two categories for men: mothers and prostitutes. Mothers produce soldiers as well as male children in the patriarchal institution of marriage and family, while prostitutes give the pleasure of sex in the equally patriarchal institution of prostitution. Women were, and continue to be, treated by men only as sex objects. Thus, the patriarchal, imperial, and legal prostitution system continued throughout Japan's period of modernization. The issue of comfort women as an integral part of Japanese patriarchy and imperialism cuts across divisions of state, class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Interwoven into all these divisions, the use of comfort women helped to institutionalize the trafficking of women.
Japanese Government Response to the Comfort Women Issue
On 16 January 1992, just before Japan's former prime minister Miyazawa visited South Korea, documents on“military comfort women”were discovered in the Self Defense Force Library in Tokyo by Yoshimi Yoshiaki, a professor of Japanese history at Chuo University. Since then many documents on“military comfort women”have been found in Japan and Washington, D.C., and witnesses have come forward to disclose how institutionalized prostitution and sexual slavery were controlled and supervised by the Japanese Imperial Army.
The inhuman practice of comfort women is rooted in discrimination in gender, race, and ethnicity, and driven by the imbalance in the international economy and systematic commodifying of female bodies.
Until Yoshimi's discoveries of incriminating documents, the Japanese government kept denying the compulsory drafting and recruiting of Korean women. During his visit to Korea on 17 January 1992, however, the Japanese prime minister apologized to the Korean people in a public speech in Parliament. Nevertheless, at that time he ruled out compensation for the military comfort women, suggesting that war compensation between Japan and Korea was settled in a 1965 agreement on war reparations. His comment disappointed the Korean and Japanese people committed to this issue.
In its second report on comfort women, the Cabinet Councilors' Office on External Affairs finally stated on 5 August 1993 that the“government admitted that Japanese military authorities were in constant control of women forced to provide sex for soldiers before and during WW II, and the government apologizes and expresses remorse over the issue.”However, the Japanese government still did not bring up the issue of compensation.
After a year of further criticism and pressure, in November 1994 the Japanese government announced its plan to promote youth exchanges, create a center to support the financial independence of women, and establish a private-sector redress fund including a donation from the government to provide former comfort women with alternative compensation. However, former Korean comfort women and their supporters, primarily the Korean Council For the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, have rejected such donation or charity money as a token apology, demanding that the Japanese government provide compensation directly, along with an official letter of apology. The former comfort women and their supporters have been backed in this by a Geneva-based human rights group of legal experts from around the world, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), which issued a 240-page report in late November 1994 urging the Japanese government to provide full rehabilitation and restitution, and as a purely interim measure the sum of U.S. $40,000 each to between 100,000 and 200,000 former comfort women.
[The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is a nongovernmental organization in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The U.N. Human Rights Commission decided in August 1992 to look into the issue of compensation for comfort women, and the resulting ICJ report is the outcome of its mission to the Philippines, North and South Korea, and Japan in April 1993. The ICJ mission interviewed more than forty victims, three former soldiers, and government representatives, nongovernment organizations, lawyers, academics, and journalists. The report was then compiled by Ustina Dolopol of Flinders University in South Australia. The International Commisson of Jurists, P.O. Box 160, 26 Chemin de Joinveille, CH-1216, Cointrin/Geneva, Switzerland. Telephone, ( 41 22) 788-47 47; fax, (41 22) 788-488 80 --ED.]
The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan also announced in July 1994 that it would file a complaint with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to clarify whether Japan is obliged to compensate individual women who were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers before and during World War II. The Permanent Court of Arbitration requires agreement by both parties, however, and the Japanese government has repeatedly decided not to accept the request. There is a need for international pressure urging the Japanese government to voluntarily present itself at the international court.
Comfort Women as a Feminist Issue and Action
In Korea agitation by the women's movement as well as anger at the Japanese government's attitude has brought the comfort women issue into the spotlight. The revelation of the condition of comfort women triggered stormy national protests, fueling animosity in Korea and encouraging more disclosures and lawsuits. In both Korean and Japan, however, without the women's movement the disclosures about comfort women and their lawsuits may never have happened or perhaps would have taken much longer to surface.
The women's movement in Korea and Japan has started to encourage women to discuss their sexuality and control their own bodies. The most influential court case occurred in Korea in the late 1980s: a Korean woman for the first time talked publicly about being raped in prison by a policeman. This case taught Korean women how important it was to protest all kinds of sexual abuse.
Both in Korea and Japan women have been discovering and renaming the violation of women's sexuality--including such sexual violence as sexual harassment, domestic violence, pornography, and stereotyped images of women and gender roles. Especially, women have come to notice that sexual violence, violation of women's human rights, and sex industries and prostitution in Asian countries have worsened, and that women's bodies have been increasingly commodified. Sensing this situation, in the mid-1970s feminist activists in Korea began actions against the sex industries. At the same time, the Asian Women's Association was organized in Japan and started to protest Japanese men's sex tourism, establishing connections between Korea and Japan. Trying to examine prostitution historically, these women discovered the issue of comfort women.
Thus women started to make the connection between comfort women and the Japanese cultural apparatus responsible for the current trafficking of women and sexual violence. Sexuality was and is used to control and rule both men and women. Created through legalized prostitution based on patriarchy, colonialism, and imperialism, the system of comfort women clearly demonstrates that capitalism, sexism, and racism are linked and perpetuated both in the colonial and postcolonial eras.
Women's organizations and self-help groups were formed in Japan to politicize the issue. Through such groups women have been trying to bring about a revolution and liberation from patriarchy, militarism, and colonialism and to raise consciousness and establish their own autonomy. They have also been working to make this historic case of military slavery an international issue, utilizing international human rights laws that provide for an individual's right to compensation. This has become an urgent task, for it must be done before former comfort women are too old to be able to use compensation to improve their lives.
In August 1992 the Asian Women's Network of East Asian Countries was established in Seoul to exchange information, provide support, and nurture mutual empowerment. The network sent a legal appeal to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. This network has been creating a climate that will help survivors share their experiences.
To promote this network Yun Chung-ok, who is part of the same generation as the comfort women, has played a key role in the movement by conducting research on comfort women and helping establish the network of women's groups in Korea that are protesting the trafficking of women and sexual violence. This network has created a climate that has enabled women survivors to come forth to tell their experiences. In 1993 the second“Asian Solidarity Forum on Militarism and Sexual Slavery”was held in Tokyo with former comfort women and activists of eight Asian countries including South Korea, North Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan. At the solidarity forum Yun Chung-ok's Seoul-based group, the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, proposed as an additional new goal the prosecution of the persons responsible for the planning and execution of military sexual slavery. Although the lawsuit by the Korean council was not accepted at the Tokyo district court, the council is moving ahead, as described in the previous section, by filing a complaint with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague asking it to clarify whether Japan is obliged to compensate former comfort women.
Confucianism trapped women into perpetuating both the patriarchal system that created a double standard and the chastity myth. Moreover, Confucianism allowed men to continue to own women as private property.
Comfort women's hot lines have been installed by civic groups in both Korea and Japan. In the first three days the Japanese hot lines received 231 calls in Tokyo and 61 in Osaka. Most calls came from veterans over seventy years old, army doctors, and female nurses. There was one call from a former Japanese comfort woman included in the report published as Jugun ianfu 110 ban (Military comfort women hot lines). Nishino Rumiko, director of the Society Concerned with World War II, and the Group Supporting Comfort Women helped organize the hot lines. One former military man confessed:“I wanted to talk about these women for a long time, but I could not because it concerned my own sexuality. However, I felt relieved after telling you about my experience in the war.”
Three different types of action groups in Japan emphasize different aspects of the issues. The first type consists mostly of men such as the Karabao group, men's liberation groups, and Japanese-Korean groups emphasize racism, colonialism, and imperialism. They see the Japanese armies using sexual enslavement to castrate Asian men and colonize Asian women as a way of controlling these countries. These male-dominated action groups note that the Japanese army enslaved Korean women's bodies to protect Japanese women's chastity. Korean men living in Japan also felt dehumanized by Japan's degradation of Korean women. Sexual debasement in wartime contributed to the inability of the colonized countries to struggle for independence and their own identity as human beings. They were deprived of their human rights.
In contrast, Japanese feminists groups, which are broad and the members of which are from many different professions, emphasize sexism. Women like Suzuki Yuko and other historians see in the issue of comfort women the universality of sexual violence and discrimination practiced in such sex industries as sex tourism and trafficking in women. They feel that both developed and developing countries share the guilt of sexual exploitation by treating women as commodities and creating a sexist culture.
One of these feminists, Fukushima Mizuho, a Japanese woman lawyer who has been working on the lawsuits of migrant Asian women workers and comfort women, points out the similarity between comfort women during wartime and migrant women workers who work in the sex industries in present-day Japan:“There is a parallel between comfort women and Asian women today who are deceived into coming to Japan and are then forced to work as prostitutes against their wills. Both of these groups were and are deluded by the same seductive voice: if you come to Japan, you will easily find well-paid jobs.”
Similarly, historian Suzuki Yuko suggests, sex tourism by Japanese men in other Asian countries and trafficking in Asian women is a contemporary version of the Japanese Imperial Army's prior exploitation of Asian women as comfort women. The only difference lies in whether men are in military uniforms or in business suits. It is male degradation of women as commodities. This analysis has been pointed out by many other feminists.
Many feminists also believe that men too are victims and are treated as commodities in militarist and capitalist societies. As they see it, and I agree with their argument, male soldiers were regarded as animals in need of prostitutes because they were supposedly unable to control their own sexual impulses. Male soldiers were actually made inhumane in order to be“good”fighters. The military and colonial soldiers were stimulated by sexuality just like economic soldiers in the postcolonial era. Prostitution is the reward for businessmen who may suffer death from overwork (karoshi) for their companies, as it was for the Japanese Imperial Army soldiers who were forced to risk death for the emperor on the battlefield. In this way women's sexuality has been used to expand the Japanese state's power in other Asian countries, and this continues today when migrant workers who come to Japan are forced into prostitution.
A third group, the Korean-Japanese women's groups such as the Military Comfort Women Issue Uriyosong Network based in Tokyo and the Group Considering the Korean Military Comfort Women Issue in Osaka,( )both of which were organized in 1991 to support former comfort women in Korea, tell us that the whole structure of sexism joined with racism allowed the Japanese army to institutionalize the comfort women system, and this combination continues today in sex industries that service Japanese men. The inhuman practice of comfort women is rooted in discrimination in gender, race, and ethnicity, and driven by the imbalance in the international economy and systematic commodifying of female bodies. Women's rights to control their own bodies were and are violated by a sexist and racist social structure both in the past and present. Korean-Japanese women in Japan themselves have no civil rights so that they have experienced social as well as racial and gender discrimination. Korean-Japanese Hwangbou Kangja, a committed member of the Group Considering the Korean Military Comfort Women Issue, says that she first tried to avoid facing the issues of comfort women as a wartime tragedy. But when she realized the importance of these issues, she committed herself to them as a way of grasping her own identity and raising her consciousnes. Through protesting against the Japanese government and organizing international conferences together , Japanese and Korean-Japanese feminist groups have started a dialogue for working together for the future.
Protest against a Condom Manufacturer
Women's action groups, such as Osaka Women against Sexual Assault, women teachers' unions, and the Group Considering the Korean Military Comfort Women Issue, have formed a coalition linking the issue of comfort women with sexual violence, postcolonial exploitation by Japanese corporations, and racism in our everyday lives. As a symbolic action they have undertaken actions against the Okamoto Rubber Manufacturing Company, the biggest condom maker in Japan. This company recently produced condoms with two names on the packages: “Rubber Man”and“Attack Champion”(Totsugeki Ichiban). The condom called Attack Champion suggests that the man's most important duty is to“charge”or“attack”enemies. In a sexual context this term is highly provocative, closely associated with collective rapes and pornographic cartoons such as Reipu man ( Rape man). The Japanese Imperial Army officially provided Japanese soldiers with the original condom called Attack Champion to use in brothels during World War II to protect the soldiers from venereal diseases. It is obvious that this reissued name is reminiscent of the comfort women and sex industries of earlier days.
The Okamoto Manufacturing Company monopolized the condom business during Word War II under the name Kokusai Rubber Company. During the present AIDS epidemic era, this company has expanded, building factories in Malaysia with the help of Japanese official development assistance money. Raw materials have been imported into Japan from the Asian countries the Japanese Imperial Army invaded, and the company's products have been sold in Asia as well as in the United States to help family planning, good contraception, and protection from AIDS. All this shows us how human- rights-violating sexism and racism are being perpetuated in the capitalist and postcolonial era.
Women's action groups have demanded that this company conduct research on its own company's past actions, take responsibility for its actions, publicly apologize for them, educate employees about human rights, acknowledge its part in the systematic rape of Asian women during World War II, and denounce violence against women. Also, these groups demand that each condom box have a label stating that “every sexual intercourse without the women's consent is a rape.”
Conclusion
So, what can we do now we have learned about this brutal aspect of history? We need new strategies. Unless sexual violence and the commodification of women's bodies is eliminated, there will always be comfort women. Recently the world has seen additional offensive cases, such as a representative of the Japanese government suggesting providing Japanese Peace-Keeper Operation ( PKO) soldiers with condoms when they were sent from Japan to Cambodia. This equipping of men to buy women in other Asian countries brings to mind the practice of comfort women.
We have to change social structures as well as our consciousness, and acknowledge victims as courageous survivors. We have to keep re-creating a climate in which women will speak out against rape, sex tourism, prostitution, and the use of comfort women. Women must unite to fight against myths that obscure reality. A global women's movement has encouraged women to establish a network to halt the trafficking of women, unify the peace movement, and also form support groups for former military comfort women. Japanese women must establish close networks with Korean- Japanese women in Japan as well as with Korean women in Korea to change the social structures that allow men to exploit women's sexuality.
Global pressure is also needed to push the Japanese government to take full responsibility for what it has done in neighboring countries during war. The Japanese government is sensitive to international pressure. Women's collective voices must be a great force for change in the Japanese government's attitude regarding comfort women. By forcing the Japanese government to deal with the compensation issues, such pressure may help build closer relationships between Japan and other Asian nations.
We have to stop war; we have to monitor the new militarism in Japan--such as the bill attempting to allow the dispatch of Japanese Self-Defense Corps troops under the PKO and to change the constitution that prohibits any armaments. The United Nations Anti-Discrimination Act appropriately says that“without peace there would be no equality; without equality there would be no peace.”I must add that there will be no human rights either. Hwangbou Kangja suggests that the Japanese government's treatment of the comfort women issue is a barometer of its sensitivity to human rights. Eight former comfort women have passed away in the last few years, three in 1993 alone. There is little time left.
Endnotes
*An earlier version of this article was read at the“Fifth International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women”held at the University of Costa Rica in February 1993. Since then it has been revised, and more information has been added to it. I wish to thank the Japanese and Japanese-Korean women's groups that provided me with information and stories about“comfort women,”and E. Patricia Tsurumi and Edward Friedman of the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars for their help with editing. We at the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars also wish to thank Kevin Rooney, Kyung Menkick, and Alice Yun Chai for translating caption information for us, and Ito Takashi, Yun Chung-ok, Shimada Yoshiko, E. Patricia Tsurumi, Alice Chai, Joan Ericson, Brenda Stoltzfus, and Saundra Sturdevant for helping us obtain graphics for this article.
