Korean WWII sex slaves fight on
- From: ano457@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 15 Aug 2005 09:29:27 -0700
Korean WWII sex slaves fight on
By William Horsley
BBC News
"Japan - reveal the truth! Admit the crime! Officially apologise!
Punish the criminals!" South Korean protesters chant every Wednesday
outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.
In their midst, a small group of elderly women sit silently.
They are the survivors of the brutal, Asia-wide system of sex slaves
for the Imperial Japanese Army, which the military government
encouraged and helped to operate for 13 years, from 1932 until the end
of World War II in 1945.
They were euphemistically called "comfort women". But experts like
Korean American scholar Edward Chang of the University of California
say the network of "comfort stations" were actually
officially-sanctioned rape camps.
Many of the women were even killed as part of an attempt to cover up
the crime.
"There should be no time limit on prosecuting these crimes against
humanity," Prof Chang said.
Japan says all potential claims by individuals for sufferings inflicted
in the war were closed years ago, by treaties normalising its ties with
other Asian countries.
But Kang Kyung-wha, a senior official at South Korea's foreign
ministry, has recently urged Japan to come to terms with its "legal
responsibility" and human rights obligations towards the former comfort
women.
Repeatedly abused
Kim Gunja, now aged 80, is too frail to attend the Wednesday
demonstrations.
Her story is typical of the tens of thousands - some estimates say
200,000 - women from across Asia whose lives were ruined when they
became military sex slaves to the Japanese.
At the age of 17, she was tricked into being abducted by a Korean
middle-man who delivered large numbers of young women and girls to his
country's then Japanese colonial masters.
Kim Gunja suspects that her foster father, a policeman, sold her for
money or promotion.
She was taken by train to the so-called comfort stations for the
Japanese army in Manchuria, north-east China, where she says she was
raped by the soldiers many times a day for three years.
"The soldiers didn't know when they would die, and they were very
cruel," she said.
She was beaten so badly that she lost her hearing in one ear. After the
war she could never marry or get a good job.
She still cannot forgive. And she saves her fiercest hatred for current
Japanese leaders.
She wants them to show sincere atonement for Japan's past wrongdoings
and to take responsibility by paying official compensation.
Facing up to the past
Japan stands accused of a series of evasions in facing up to the
military sex slave issue.
According to Mr Chang, Japan's first admission of involvement only came
in 1991, after a wartime document came to light in the foreign ministry
about the granting of travel permits for Asian women in areas occupied
by the Japanese army.
He says that, since then, the Japanese authorities have continued to
hinder the search for detailed evidence about the fate of the former
comfort women.
But his own research team's trawl through America's national archives
has produced a sheaf of files captured by the US army from the
retreating Japanese forces.
They contain photos and other personal details of dozens of young
Filipino women - evidence, he says, of the most extensive system of
female trafficking the world has ever seen.
Since 1992 Japanese prime ministers have all made formal apologies for
the war.
But Shin Hae-soo, head of the Korean council supporting the former
military sexual slaves, believes these statements are just empty words.
Only legal reparations, she says, will suffice to acknowledge what she
sees as war crimes.
In Japan, a recent opinion poll showed that only 13% of the population
think further apologies to Asian countries are needed.
In 1995 the Japanese government took its boldest step so far, setting
up an Asian Women's Fund, which collected private donations and sent
"atonement money" worth $30,000 or more to each of 364 former comfort
women in Taiwan, the Philippines and South Korea.
It also directly funded medical care for the recipients.
A director of the fund, Yasuaki Onuma, acknowledges the criticism of
Japan's slow and limited response.
But he also holds some hard-line South Korean campaigners responsible
for the impasse.
Many of the Korean victims, he says, were put under intense social
pressures to refuse the Japanese donations, although they sorely needed
that support.
It was recently decided that the fund will shut down within two years.
So the poison from past cruelties will be passed on to a new generation
of Koreans and Japanese.
Kim Gunja now lives near Seoul in a home for former comfort women
supported by the South Korean government. She says she hopes Japan will
reveal the truth and offer her official compensation.
"Otherwise", she said, "I will not be able to close my eyes when I
die."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4749467.stm
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