Remember Their Names: Comfort Women
By: Bobin Park
In 1910, the Japanese annexed the Korean Empire, reverting it to Joseon, also called Chosŏn (Blakemore 2020). Today, the Imperial Japanese occupation is still a haunting memory of the past for Korean senior citizens. Especially to the women. Over 200,000 girls and women, largely Korean, (Amnesty 2021) were forcefully recruited “against their own will” (Kono Statment 1993) to provide sexual services to the Imperial Japanese Army. They were called “comfort women” and were subjected to “gang rape, forced abortions, humiliation, and sexual violence”, according to House Resolution 121 passed by Congress in 2007. During World War II, the armies sent them to military brothels in the war fronts of China and Southeast Asia (Gersen 2021) where they were “forced to have sex … under brutal, inhumane conditions” and “rapes…, pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and bleak conditions” (Blakemore 2020).
After Japan and its Axis powers lost World War II, it also lost its colonial rule over Korea. Korea evolved, through war and peace, into two separate countries with two separate governments. But Korea as a whole has forgotten her children. Women that traveled barefoot from the war fronts of Taiwan and China back home. They returned to a country that did not welcome them with open arms, instead, they merely skimmed over their bruised bodies and pushed them aside to a forgotten place in the history books. Most of these girls returned to dead relatives, confiscated homes, and unemployment. Today, the grandmothers that work part-time jobs or run a shop in local markets could be one of the women that gripped on fervently to make a living. All while burying their memories into late-night dreams, unwanted by society and its government.
I resonate with these women because, according to testimonies, most of them were 14 or 16 during this time. As a 15-year-old Korean girl alive today to see the Japanese government’s attempts to erase history, all I feel is shock and disgust towards everyone that killed a small part of these women’s souls. To the Japanese soldiers that abused these women to the point of suicide. To the Japanese government that refused legal responsibilities because these women were “voluntary prostitutes” (Ramseyer 2021). And to the Korean public’s indirect support of these actions by not acknowledging nor offering help to these women until much time has passed.
The world needs to remember them for the injustices they had overcome to live side by side along with their untarnished compatriots. Remember the girls who hated their blood-torn bodies and hung themselves on rope. Remember the women who lived that were ostracized by society and had nightmares of when they were 16 at the age of 80.
We still see echoes of this century-old pain in the news. In March 2021, a Harvard University professor, Ramseyer, claimed that the 200,000 comfort women had chosen to work voluntarily via contracts (The Guardian 2021). This view was pushed by the Japanese public, appearing in some of their major newspapers. And in January 2021, a South Korean Judge demanded Japan pay 100 million won ($91,800) each to 12 victims when they had sued the Japanese government in 2016. In response, Japan rejected the ruling and Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato called it “absolutely unacceptable” (CNN 2021).
The world already acknowledges that the practice of comfort women is a “crime against humanity.” But the true perpetrators refuse to admit, apologize, or let history be told. We cannot forget these women and the support they deserve.