A rare interview with Kim Bok-dong, a 90-year-old South Korean woman who was taken from her home village and abused as a ‘comfort woman’ by the Japanese Army during World War II.
I was 14 years old when I was forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese government. They said they would hire me as a factory worker, but instead they dragged many of us to Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia and Indonesia. I was with the army headquarters so I went almost everywhere with them.There are no words to describe what the soldiers did to me, from noon to 5pm on Saturdays and 8am to 8pm on Sundays. By the end of the day, I could not even sit up. After eight years of suffering, they placed me as a worker in an army hospital. Their intention was to hide any evidence of ‘comfort women’.
I did not even know when the war ended. When I came back home, I was 22. How could I tell anyone what had happened to me? My parents kept telling me to get married, but I could not. So I had to tell them in the end. They did not believe it at first and then said at least it was very fortunate for me to survive all of that. It has been several decades since the end of the war but there has been no proper response from Japan. If our own government is not working on this issue, who should we talk to? This is why we are still fighting.
I got involved in the movement for ‘comfort women’ as soon as it started, so 20 years ago. One day, they were calling for reports from ‘comfort women’ survivors. So I called them. People came to find me and even a broadcasting company came to me as well. I don’t remember the exact date, but the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery came to me and I have been with them ever since. It was really difficult at first, but I could not sit back when all these people would come forward at the Wednesday Protests for us. Now, I also protest outside the embassy every Wednesday. We shout to call on the Japanese government to apologize. We have bonded over this period of time.
When I went to Vienna for the UN World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, many women around the world cried with us, for us. I really appreciate the support from other states. They speak as if they are ready to work with us right away. However, I believe they need to push Japan further if they really want to help us. And they do not seem to know that this didn’t just happen to Korean women. All those countries whose women suffered should co-operate more actively to protest against the Japanese government’s denial. All those countries probably know about the crimes and that it was wrong. They should co-operate and urge Japan to accept recommendations and make this recent UN Universal Periodic Review Process important. I look forward to more actions than words that will help keep Japan under pressure.
Although several decades have passed, nothing has been resolved. When I hear about supporters from all around the world, I am just thankful and it gives me a hope that this fight may end really soon. I hope more and more people raise their voices for a resolution of this issue. Let’s stand strong and not give up. I also urge young women and students to join our fight for justice − your voices and your actions will be greatly appreciated.
I am now 90 and this is indeed tiring for me. But I want to receive an apology from the Japanese government myself. I am not doing this for money. I just want the Japanese government to regret their actions, take responsibility for what they did, apologize to all of us, and respect our human rights.
To all the women around the world, be strong. No war! No violence against women!
Watch a video of our interview with Kim.
This slideshow shows some of Paula Allen’s iconic images of former ‘comfort women’.
Please help us from HARASSMENT and PROPAGANDA!
We are harassed persistently by Koreans and others.
Koreans mix rape issues by some Japanese soldiers and comfort women issues.
Most comfort women were prostitutes who selected the job to feed their family during extremely poor era. Some were kidnapped/deceived to be prostitutes by Korean brokers. Comfort women indeed spent miserable time. But, they were not abducted by Japanese government!!
Again, there were many rape cases. The case in Indonesia where Netherlands’ , Australian, etc. women were raped is one of the cases. The criminals were sent to a court and punished. One of them even got the death penalty.
If you want to complain about Japan, complain about the rapes!
Please sing on these petitions!
Repeal the House of Representatives Resolution 121 to stop aggravating int’l harassment by Korean propaganda & lies!
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/repeal-house-representatives-resolution-121-stop-aggravating-intl-harassment-korean-propaganda-lies/yJw8lgRZ
Remove the monument and not to support any international harassment related to this issue against the people of Japan.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-monument-and-not-support-any-international-harassment-related-issue-against-people-japan/FPfs7p0Q
Thanks for your help.
I am beyond words right now, I can’t belive Japan would do this… and to their own people….. I dont understand…
Well they were South Korean women which is a big difference in that it also fuels the hatred of Koreans against Japan and is one of the reasons (in my opinion) that the relationship between both countries is still not exactly perfect.
Bravo to all the ladies!!! The Japanese are still changing the history textbooks in schools so that children wouldn’t know about the Rape of Nanking, so I am very doubtful that they will apologize to the Comfort Women around the world. Apology is not a word in their volcabulary. The Japanese simply have too much pride. Good luck. My heart goes out to everyone.
To: Kim Bok Dong, i always give a big support to all you have done to get a justice, many women in my country have done the same activities like you since 1970′s to get the justice for them, at those period I hadn’t been born but now I know that the justice must be the winner, there will be a peaceful life for you in the future. Be strong! God bless you!
Amnesty International is a global movement which campaigns to end grave human rights abuses and for every person to enjoy all their human rights under international human rights law. We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion.
In 2005 Amnesty International conducted independent research and published a report on the failure of the Japanese government to provide justice for the survivors of Japan’s military sexual slavery system.
Contradicting the legal position vigorously upheld by the government of Japan, this report summarizes the evidence that the “comfort women” system violated international law at the time, including prohibitions against slavery, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Under international law, a state that commits a serious crime has a legal obligation to provide full reparations.
Amnesty International’s report examines the limited steps the Japanese government has taken to “atone” including apologies made by prominent officials and the establishment of the Asian Women’s Fund to distribute “atonement money”. However it concludes that these measures still fail to meet international standards on reparation.
For more information see the full report at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA22/012/2005/en
To solve this issue, we have to clarify what the problem is about the issue and what was the crime.
Most people are vague, or have different opinions about that.
1. Comfort woman system itself was a crime.
2. To coerce women to be comfort women was a crime.
3. Rape in the brothels is a crime.
1. Comfort woman system existed in almost every countries such as USA, France, Germany, and even South Korea, but not with the name.
→Magnus Hirschfeld 『The Sexual History of the World War』(1930)
In Germany, its government directly controlled 500 brothels and their own prostitutes during WWII. Sometimes coercion occurred.
→http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghyw6bW9mz0
→Franz W. Seidler 『Prostitution, Homosexualität, Selbstverstümmelung. Probleme der deutschen Sanitätsführung 1939 – 1945』(1977)
France also had own prostitutes and “Bordels Mobiles de Campagne(mobile brothels)”even after the WWII(during the Indochina War).
→Bernard B. Fall 『Street Without Joy』(1961)
USA used Japanese comfort women during occupation era and Korean comfort women during the Korean War.
→[Article:Dong-a Ilbo 1961.9.1 “The registration of CW for U.N soldiers will began from Sep.13th”]
http://www010.upp.so-net.ne.jp/japancia/kiji/20070319117430460294666400.jpg
→[Article:Dong-a Ilbo 1961.1.31 “800 CW and U.S. army attended a lecture class for CW held by Korean Police on Jan.27”]
http://img2.blogs.yahoo.co.jp/ybi/1/28/26/ynm0/folder/1798965/img_1798965_64015804_0
→[Article:Gyeonghyang Shinmun 1953.Dec.12 “17,300 Korean women work as CW for UN military”
http://newslibrary.naver.com/viewer/index.nhn?articleId=1953121200329202029&editNo=1&printCount=1&publishDate=1953-12-12&officeId=00032&pageNo=2&printNo=2364&publishType=00020
If CW system was a Japanese war crime of the WWII, why did USA and Korea COPY it during the Korean war?
2. There’s no record Japanese government or army systematically kidnapped or enforced those women, but rather the contrary. They made great efforts to crack down human trafficking crimes which frequently occurred in Korea by Koreans. While so many Koreans were arrested for abduction and deception crimes, NO Japanese was caught committing those crimes.
→http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwv2qDJ57SY (10:58)
If Japanese really abducted CW, why did they ARREST Korean criminals of abduction instead of rewarding them for speeding up the process? It doesn’t make sense to me.
3. Whether Japanese soldiers really committed raping or not. We can only listen to CW’s testimonies. Many of them testified that they were beaten up, raped, and sexually humiliated by Japanese soldiers.
But please think about the following case. *You had sex with a woman “with agreement” 20 years ago. You never committed violence toward her at all. But if, suddenly today, she sues you for raping and violence, how can you disprove her? Until yesterday, she had never spoken about it for 20 years.
1945: The WWII ended
1946: The Tokyo Trial
1965: The Japan/Korea Treaty
1977: 『Korean comfort women and Japanese』Yoshida Seiji
1983: 『My war crimes』Yoshida Seiji
1989: Korean newspaper “Jeju” denied Yoshida’s books(crimes by Japanese)
1996: Yoshida Seiji confessed he has written a fictitious story
Today: Hundreds of Korean women come out as a ex comfort woman who was abducted or enforced by Japanese. Korean government claims there were 200,000 women victims.
Why didn’t those crimes get caught on the spot just like the case of a Dutch woman in Indonesia? Why didn’t CW sue Japan right after the war? What about the Tokyo trial or J/K treaty? There were so many opportunity to accuse Japanese war crimes before ’80s. Why did they keep silent for such a long term? When 200,000 women were abducted or deceived by Japanese, what were their fathers, husbands, brothers, and friends were doing?
Korean government is purposely hiding their own comfort woman history.
But there’s a Korean ex prostitute for UN soldiers who accused USA and Korean government too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/world/asia/08korea.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
According to the USA army’s report#49 in Myitkyina, Burma
Korean comfort women were….
*nothing more than a prostitute
*usually quartered in a large two story house with a separate room for each girl
*living in near-luxury in Burma
*living well because their food and material was not heavily rationed and they had plenty of money with which to purchase desired articles
*able to buy cloth, shoes, cigarettes, and cosmetics to supplement the many gifts given to them by soldiers who had received “comfort bags” from home.
*amusing themselves by participating in sports events with both officers and men, and attending picnics, entertainments, and social dinners. They had a phono-graph and in the towns they were allowed to go shopping.
*allowed the prerogative of refusing a customer
*could return home when they had paid their debt
And…
*A regular Japanese Army doctor visited the houses once a week and any girl found diseased was given treatment, secluded, and eventually sent to a hospital.
On the other hand, according to the testimony by the Korean ex prostitute for US military,
“the American military police and South Korean officials regularly raided clubs from the 1960s through the 1980s looking for women who were thought to be spreading the diseases. They picked out the women using the number tags the women say the brothels forced them to wear so the soldiers could more easily identify their sex partners.”
And one more important fact. If you collect all of Korean CW’s testimonies that were ever made, you’ll find they have so many contradictions, falsity, and incoherence.
And you’ll notice they’ve changed their story a lot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uRCFoMpMys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwv2qDJ57SY
In war zones all over the world crimes of sexual violence have been and are committed against women. For centuries, wartime rape was perceived as an inevitable consequence of war. Even today, in an era where global consciousness around human rights, specifically the rights of women, has risen, survivors of sexual violence are largely denied redress: there is widespread impunity for these crimes where perpetrators go unpunished and victims are denied any form of reparation. Sexual violence, including rape, is used as a weapon of war – it is used deliberately to demoralize and destroy the opposition and is used to provide ‘entertainment’ and ‘fuel’ for soldiers as part of the very machinery of war.
In 2005 Amnesty International conducted independent research and published a report on the failure of the Japanese government to provide justice for the survivors of Japan’s military sexual slavery system.
Contradicting the legal position vigorously upheld by the government of Japan, this report summarizes the evidence that the “comfort women” system violated international law at the time, including prohibitions against slavery, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
For more information see the full report at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA22/012/2005/en
>In war zones all over the world crimes of sexual violence have been and are committed
>against women. For centuries, wartime rape was perceived as an inevitable consequence of
>war. Even today, in an era where global consciousness around human rights, specifically the
>rights of women, has risen, survivors of sexual violence are largely denied redress: there is
>widespread impunity for these crimes where perpetrators go unpunished and victims are denied
>any form of reparation. Sexual violence, including rape, is used as a weapon of war – it is used
>deliberately to demoralize and destroy the opposition and is used to provide ‘entertainment’
>and ‘fuel’ for soldiers as part of the very machinery of war.
Then, why Amnesty International singles out Japan to blame for sex in the battle field. Why don’t you blame all countries whose soldiers raped women, who have/had the same/similar/worse comfort woman system???
You are discriminating Japan and Japanese people.
Because Japanese are relatively moderate and generally don’t use violence and it is easy to attack Japanese you cherry-picked us, right? Who is paying for your discrimination campaign against Japan?
Hi Pak – Amnesty International conducted independent research and published a report in 2005 on the failure of the Japanese government to provide justice for the survivors of Japan’s military sexual slavery system. The research found that there is overwhelming evidence that the “comfort women” system violated international law, including prohibitions against slavery. Women and girls were preyed on because of their age, poverty, class, family status, education, nationality or ethnicity and were susceptible to being deceived and trapped into the sexual slavery system. Others were abducted. For more information see the full report at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA22/012/2005/en
Kristin,
I checked your report to see what references you have. When we see references we can know the level of your report.
I think your report is extremely POOR.
These are some points that I think it is poor.
- You have examined materials only from accusers. You have not listen to abduction deniers’ opinions. This is similar to accuse a suspect without a lawyer that leads to a false accusation
- You rely on testimonies too much.
- UN investigators cannot read Japanese and Korean at native level and totally incapable of investigating the case.
- Especially, Coomaraswamy is notorious for its inaccuracy and biased view on this matter.
- George Hicks also cannot read Japanese and Korean at all and he relied on materials that were given from leftist, communists and North Korea-related people.
- Yoshimi,Yoshiaki, he also cannot present any objective evidence to say that government/military ABDUCTED women.
No end and cheap shot.
Hi Pak –
In war zones all over the world crimes of sexual violence have been and are committed against women. For centuries, wartime rape was perceived as an inevitable consequence of war. Even today, in an era where global consciousness around human rights, specifically the rights of women, has risen, survivors of sexual violence are largely denied redress: there is widespread impunity for these crimes where perpetrators go unpunished and victims are denied any form of reparation. Sexual violence, including rape, is used as a weapon of war – it is used deliberately to demoralize and destroy the opposition and is used to provide ‘entertainment’ and ‘fuel’ for soldiers as part of the very machinery of war.
As we said in our previous reply, in 2005 Amnesty International conducted independent research and published a report on the failure of the Japanese government to provide justice for the survivors of Japan’s military sexual slavery system. Contradicting the legal position vigorously upheld by the government of Japan, this report summarizes the evidence that the “comfort women” system violated international law at the time, including prohibitions against slavery, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
For more information see the full report at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA22/012/2005/en
Kim ,u r brave, and the people of other side are coward.i am much worried why they use women like a toy.cruelty used to women is a shame on japan.