Choi is a third-year business economics student and Jeong is a
third-year computer science and engineering student.
By Yvonne Choi and David
Jeong
Imagine a young girl in her early teens. She leaves her homeland
to work so that she could help feed her family. Instead, she finds
herself in a camp where she is forced to have sex with soldiers,
sometimes 30 to 40 men a day.
Sounds like a fictitious story, doesn’t it? Well, this was
a horrifying experience told by Kim Soon-Duk recently at UCLA
(“No comfort in history,” Daily Bruin, News, Oct. 25).
Her innocence and life were stripped away from her 63 years ago at
the age of 17, when she lived this nightmare for three years.
Why do people have to exploit others? Sometimes, people can be
so callous, as in the case of the “comfort women,” or
should we say the “sex slaves.”
Some of you might not know that during the Second World War, the
Japanese imperial government forced nearly 200,000 to 300,000 girls
from ages 12 to 20 to serve as unpaid prostitutes to Japanese
soldiers. Presently, the Japanese government still has not given
these women appropriate reparations for what happened to them
during the war.
Many of you may ask, “Why is this important to us? This
happened before our time.” Well, let me tell you that any of
these women could have been your sister, your mother, your
grandmother, even you. Times have changed and you might think that
this could never happen to you now, but this terror was even more
inconceivable to the young girls back then.
When this frightful nightmare became a reality to these young
girls, death seemed a better option. Many committed suicide in the
comfort stations. As stated by a Japanese military doctor, Aso
Tetsuo, these girls were treated like inhuman “female
ammunition” and many times were referred to as
“sanitary public toilets.” Their innocence, life, and
the joys of adolescence were stolen forever for a mere moment of
sexual pleasure.
After the war, many could not return home either because they
could not afford it or they were too embarrassed, as if it was
their fault that they had to sleep with all those men. For those
who did go home, they could not even tell their families about what
they went through because of the shame they felt for losing their
virginity. Even to this day, the horrors of being a sex slave to
the soldiers still haunts these women.
But, there are still many who dispute the idea that these women
were forced to prostitute their bodies. These people say that each
“comfort woman” volunteered. Well, if this was true,
why do these women say the complete opposite?
Many say that they were kidnapped. Some women even state that
supposed Japanese labor recruiters told them they were going to
give them factory or farm work in Japan; instead, these women ended
up in “comfort stations” where their innocence was
raped from them. If they were never used as sex slaves, why did so
many commit suicide at the camps? Why were they never given any
monetary payment for their “services” during the
war?
It is about time that the Japanese government bought this matter
to a close. I realize that each country has a horrible past that
they wish never happened: Germany with the Holocaust and the United
States with the incarceration of Japanese Americans. Who are we to
blame? Japan is only acting like every other country. But this does
not mean that we should forget the victims.
There was a perversion of the comfort women’s privacy and
the only way they will feel that this matter is brought to justice
is to be recognized as victims of the Second World War by the
Japanese government. For those who had to endure this atrocity,
there is no justification or an escape from its horrible memories
and it is hard to imagine what they could request, for nothing is a
fair compensation for their scars.
The Korean comfort women have publicly stated just seven demands
for the Japanese government. They ask for the Japanese government
to admit to the forced drafting of comfort women and apologize
officially by revealing the truth about the crime. They ask that
the government erect memorial tablets for the victims, and pay
restitution to the victims or their families.
In addition, they want this truth to be taught in schools so
that such an atrocity will never happen again. They also demand
that the Japanese soldiers who were involved be brought to
justice.
The former “victims of sexual violence” from Korea,
China, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Papa New Guinea, and LePaul
have been fighting long and hard for what is rightfully due to
them. War is a common justification for the unimaginable sins
committed by soldiers and countries.
But for how long are people going to justify ghastly sins in the
name of war? The comfort women occurrence is not a unique incident.
Sexual slavery and rape is present in almost every war (i.e. World
War I, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War).
The only difference in this case was that the Japanese imperial
government organized this sexual slavery, building “comfort
stations” strategically right next to the military bases and
organizing the forced drafting of these girls from the various
countries.
We must learn from our past and prevent such sexual violence
from ever happening again. Sexual trafficking is still very visible
in our society and many girls are still forced to live this kind of
lifestyle.
As students, we must recognize that we are the next generation,
the ones who are going to be in charge of how the world is run. We
cannot allow ignorance and violence to live on. We cannot let one
more girl live the rest of her life with constant nightmares of
sexual violence.