Attached is a Photo Copy of the Memorandum for the Members of the Third Fleet Naval Landing Force Regiment - US Navy - By Commandier L. T. Malone.
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rafficking is A Long Standing Crime - US Troop Use of Japan’s Trafficked Women 1945
- Lys Anzia - WNN - Women News Network
Trafficking of women for forced sexual use is a long standing crime. The United States was also guilty of involvement in these acts immediately following World War II in Japan.
According to an April 25, 2007 Associated Press article about US involvement with Japanese brothels in 1945, by Eric Talmadge, “An Associated Press review of historical documents and records shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution. The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan’s atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.”
On the days of Japanese surrender to the United States after the devastation of World War II and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, records show that Japan’s Ibaraki Prefectural Police Department, the Kempeitai, which had been in charge of forced prostitution during the war, set up numerous “comfort stations” for US GIs by order of the office of Japan’s Ministry of Interior on August 18, 1945.
The Kempeitai were founded in 1881 as Japan’s military police force. They numbered up to 75,000 during the war and were the ongoing managers of the Japanese brothel system.
One brothel called Yasu-ura House “comfort station” in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture was set up immediately by the Japanese Kempetai and Japan’s RAA – the Recreation and Amusement Association using Japanese government funds. This brothel was used for US military men flooding Japan at the end of the war on August 18, 1945.
Numerous other brothels were also created. At times, the brothels were very crowded with up to 600 men standing in line. The publicly accepted logic, used by Japan’s office of the Ministry of Interior for setting up the prostitution houses, was that a strong barrier between the foreign “winners of the war” and the “good” women of Japan had to be made to save “respected” regular women from the invaders.
In massive numbers women from the Philippines, Korea and China were shipped to “comfort stations” worldwide. Through this forced trafficking of women the continuing betrayal and severe suffering of the women in the brothels went on – even after the war was over.
“Twelve soldiers raped me in quick succession, after which I was given half an hour rest. Then twelve more soldiers followed. They all lined up outside the room waiting for their turn. I bled so much and was in such pain, I could not even stand up. The next morning, I was too weak to get up. . . I could not eat. I felt much pain, and my vagina was swollen. I cried and cried, calling my mother. I could not resist the soldiers because they might kill me. So what else could I do? Every day, from two in the afternoon to ten in the evening, the soldiers lined up outside my room and the rooms of the six other women there. I did not even have time to wash after each assault. At the end of the day, I just closed my eyes and cried. My torn dress would be brittle from the crust that had formed from the soldiers’ dried semen. I washed myself with hot water and a piece of cloth so I would be clean. I pressed the cloth to my vagina like a compress to relieve that pain and the swelling,” said Maria Rosa Henson, a former Filipina comfort woman, in Yuki Tanaka’s 2001 searing book, Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II & the US Occupation.
On landing in Japan, the overwhelming numbers of US troops demanding sexual service grew quickly causing Japan’s (RAA) Recreation and Amusement Association to use force and coercion to get greater and greater numbers of women for forced sex-use. Another “comfort station” brothel after Japan’s surrender was called Komachien, The Babe Garden. It quickly expanded in size from 38 to 100 women.
When the US Navy landed in Yokosuka Naval Yard, Japan, on Aug. 30 1945, Commander of the Third Fleet Naval Landing Force – US Navy Commander L.T. Malone set the ground rules for all military men going on shore. At that time the “comfort station” in Yokusuka was quickly being set in place for the incoming men by the Ministry of Interior’s office in Tokyo. On landing, Cmdr. Malone wrote a memo to his men two days before the men stepped ashore stating, “We have been chosen, largely by luck, to represent our U.S. Navy in occupation of Tokyo. There were close to one quarter of a million officers and men in the THIRD Fleet to pick from and we got the nod. We are honored to have this opportunity to represent our Navy in this occupation. Many others will follow us in after we have squared things away but we make the initial impression and, mark you well, it will be one of the great first impressions of history.”
Today this “good” impression of history is being re-written so the truth can be told about the US use of trafficked women in Japan.
In Dec. 6, 1945, Lt. Col. Hugh McDonald, a senior officer with the Public Health and Welfare Division of the US occupation’s General Headquarters, wrote of the US knowledge in the forced use of women as sex-servers. In his memorandum he wrote on the subject, “The girl is impressed into contracting (the RAA) by the desperate financial straits of her parents and their urging, occasionally supplemented by her willingness to make such a sacrifice to help her family. . . It is the belief of our informants, however, that in urban districts the practice of enslaving girls, while much less prevalent than in the past, still exists.”
“These recruiters were actively assisted by the military police (kempeitai) and local police, to ensure that the girls and women ‘volunteered’. It is indisputable that these women were forced, deceived, coerced and abducted to provide sexual services to the Japanese military,” states the 1994 report, Japan – Comfort Women: An Unfinished Ordeal: Report of a Mission by Ustinia Dolgopol and Snehal Paranjape for the International Commission of Jurists, Geneva, Switzerland.
The postwar Japanese sponsored brothels serviced US military men for almost a year from August 1945 until General Douglas MacArthur closed the program in the spring of 1946 as occupied Japan began to attempt rebuilding from its 3 million dead and nine million homeless.
“Whether it was morning or night, once one soldier left, the next soldier came. Twenty men would come in one day…” said Korean comfort woman, Pak Kumjoo, of her torture from sex-enslavement at the age of seventeen.
Women forced by the Japanese to service men during the war years were called the “jugun ianfu” – “comfort women.” The place where women were forced to sexually perform was called a “comfort house” or “comfort station.” In recent, April 2007, “previously undisclosed” war documents provided by the French, Dutch and Chinese governments provide undisputed proof of the forced use of women as “comfort women.” Brothels in remote locations at the Japanese frontlines included “comfort stations” in Indonesia, China, East Timor, Vietnam and as far away as New Guinea.
From these newly released documents the conditions of the unending suffering of women used as sex-slaves during the war has finally come to light in the public’s eye, especially the eye of Japan. In an attempt to pander to conservative politicians, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has given opposite statements on the subject though. As recently as March 1, 2007 he said to a group of reporters, “The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion.”
The newly released documents from 1948 clearly prove the opposite. These documents, filed under the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo, also called the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, were released in April 2007 by the scholars from the Center for Research and Documentation on Japan’s War Responsibility.
The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal is simply called today by many Japanese citizens the “Tokyo Trials.” Nation participants in the tribunal included eleven judges from the allied powers of the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, Republic of China, the Netherlands, Provisional Government of the French Republic, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, British India and the Philippines.
In the 1948 judgment on war crimes during the tribunal, prosecution document No. 5330, clearly mentions the forced use of women for brothels during the war. This document was quoted recently in a April 18, 2007 article in The Japan Times by Reiji Yoshida, saying, “The Special Naval Police (Tokei Tai) had ordered to keep the brothels supplied with women; to this end they arrested women on the streets and after enforced medical examination placed them in the brothels.” The 1948 document continues, “Women who had had relations with Japanese were forced into the brothels, which were surrounded by barbed wire. They were only allowed on the streets with special permission.”
- Jang Jum Dol, Japanese Comfort Woman, was 14 when Kidnapped by the Japanese - image: Chris Steele-Perkins -
These and other statements included in numerous tribunal documents and findings caused 28 defendants, comprised of military and political leaders, to be sentenced. Two Japanese defendants died during the trial, seven were sentenced to death and sixteen more were sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1948, the US government played a strong position as a member of the tribunal. Only three years earlier US troop use of the atrocious “comfort stations,” were set in place in the late summer 1945 to spring of 1946. During this time these crimes and behaviors were accepted and encouraged the US military.
“The Japanese military preyed on the most vulnerable members of society for its sexual slavery system – those who because of age, poverty, class, family status, education, national, or ethnicity were most susceptible to being deceived and otherwise trapped into slavery. The women were drawn primarily from Japan’s occupied and annexed territories, mostly from poor and rural communities,” said the transcript from The Oral Judgement delivered by the Judges of the Women’s International Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery given on Dec. 4, 2001 at The Hague, in the Netherlands.
Today, through recent exposure of tribunal documents, we know that the War Crimes Tribunal specifically cited the forced sexual use of women as an example of war crimes during World War II. While the US was attempting to legally close the door on war atrocities, along with all other nation partners during the tribunal, it was hiding its own terrible secret – its own direct involvement in sex crimes against innocent women that occurred as US military men reached the shore of occupied Japan in August 1945.
The U.S. position is “hopelessly hypocritical,” said Japan scholar Chalmers Johnson president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute, on issues surrounding the history and breath of the atrocities during World War II.
Sources for this article include the Associated Press, The Japan Times, Time Inc., ZMagazine, Amnesty International, KoreaisOne.org, International Commission of Jurists – Geneva, Switzerland, University of North Carolina - Caroline Brendt report – Endeavors magazine, ABC News, The Washington Coalition for Comfort Women, the NavShips History Ring, MSN News, The Washington Post, Wikipeidia, VAW-NET (Violence Against Women in War – Network Japan), Comfort-Women.org, the Center for Research and Documentation on Japan’s War Responsibility and Yuki Tanaka’s 2001 book – Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II & the US Occupation. / Photo images in this article provided by Comfort-Women.org and Chris-Steele-Perkins of Magnum Studios.
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(mochi) as one of a researcher of women's lib,i am confused to the women acting association which misusing human conscience and false with fake history.
why they don't effort to help today's prostitution women at all? most of them are kidnapped,in debt of their family, forced working in sexually market. why they don't help even at least a girl???????????
"Japanese army's Kidnapping (or Seizing) Korean people"
is a very "New" issue that have been "Created" decades after WWII.
It was started from a fiction novel published in 1977.
And this topic was made as a hot topic by
a false report of a certain newspaper company
who mis-believed just a fiction novel as "real history" in 1992.
However, this false report was broadcasted just before Japanese prime minister visited Korea, and thus, Japanese government decided to apologize there
even though they did NOT know if that report was true or not.
Such unnecessary apology "created" this issue.
Now a days, it has already been clearly proven that it was just a fiction novel thru lots of investigations, and even the author of that novel already confessed in 1996.
However, that false report and government's apology were widespread all over Korea and they never accepted the results of investigation anymore.
That's why we hear about "comfort women" issue now.
In other words, nobody... indeed, not a single "comfort women" was blaming Japan after WWII, until that fiction novel was published.
But anyway, let's go back to the "Real" history.
So-called "Korean Ian-Fu (comfort women)" were nothing but "officially-recognized prostitutes", who performed sexual service and had received the high-salary.
As the physical evidence, there are articles of "Comfort-women Recruitment".
Most of comfort women were justa applicants for those "open recruitment".
<>
And also it is already proven by these physical evidences that payment for comfort women were very high, comparing with other people at that time.
So, indeed, comfort women were officially-recognized prostitutes.
However, it is also the fact that many women, who applied to this recruitment, did NOT exactly know what their job will be, but just jumped to such a high wage because they or their family had debt.
In such case, I do understand they would feel like they were "deceived", however, what I have to say is, it is still the truth that they became "prostitutes", who received "high wage" in return of their sexual service.
"Prostitutes as a result of tricky recruitment" is totally different from
"Kidnapped sex slaves" like Koreans are saying.
Also, It's a sad fact but some Korean women were sold by their own parents, because parents were saddled with the debt.
"Seizing" actually conducted by the Korean human-trafficking organization in such a case.
Those Korean agents seemed to actually "kidnapped" some girls, too.
But NOT by Japanese army, anyway.
<>
The great evidence from another perspective is, the report created by US Army in 1944, regarding 20 Korean comfort women.
(http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html)
This report clearly states as follows:
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A "comfort girl" is nothing more than a prostitute
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And also, it proves that many of them became prostitute becase of the debt.
Even more, it states that they were living a wealthy life, and those who payed back all the debts were allowed to go back to Korea.
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girls who had paid their debt could return home. Some of the girls were thus allowed to return to Korea
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By the way, there are even worse cases:
Some of the people claiming for the compensation from Japan are NOT even actual "comfort women", but just telling lies.
(for example, the place or the time in their testimony has clear conflict with the facts of WWII, or, keep changing every time she testifies, etc.)
Last Updated: Tuesday, 31 July 2007, 04:37 GMT 05:37 UK
The bill urges Japan to acknowledge the women's suffering
US lawmakers have called on Japan's government to formally apologise for its role in forcing thousands of women to work as sex slaves in World War II.
The symbolic and non-binding resolution was passed during a vote in the House of Representatives.
Up to 200,000 "comfort women" from across the Far East were part of Japan's military brothel programme.
Japan says it has shown sufficient remorse over the issue. A spokesman said the resolution was "regrettable".
Chief Cabinet Spokesman Yasuhisa Shiozaki told a news conference that Japan had "handled the comfort women issue with sincerity".
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had "clearly explained his views" on the subject during a visit to Washington in April, he said.
'Nauseating' denials
The resolution calls on Japan - one of the strongest US allies in Asia - to "formally acknowledge, apologise and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner" for the suffering of the women.
Those who posit that all of the comfort women were happily complicit and acting of their own accord simply do not understand the meaning of the word rape
Tom Lantos
House Committee on Foreign Affairs chairman
Earlier this month, a group of Japanese lawmakers demanded the US government retract the resolution, saying it was based on "wrong information that is totally different from the historical fact".
Tom Lantos, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, described attempts to deny the use of sex slaves as "nauseating".
"There can be no denying the Japanese imperial military coerced thousands upon thousands of Asian women," Mr Lantos said.
"Those who posit that all of the comfort women were happily complicit and acting of their own accord simply do not understand the meaning of the word rape."
In 1993 Japan issued an official apology for the suffering of comfort women, acknowledging its involvement managing the brothels. But it was never approved by parliament and Japan has rejected most compensation claims, saying they were settled by treaties.
Mr Abe caused an uproar in March when he said there was no proof that the government or the military had forced the women into sexual servitude.
He later apologised, saying he felt sympathy for those affected.
The resolution comes at a difficult time for Mr Abe. On Sunday his ruling coalition suffered a crushing defeat in upper house polls, losing its majority and handing control of the house to the opposition.
He is facing pressure from the public and the media to step down, but the premier says he plans to remain in office and continue with an agenda of reform.
(mochi) "Up to 200,000 "comfort women" korean claims that "imperial japanese army kidnapped 200,000 virgins girls and forced as sax slaves" if their issue is right,why korean government paid annuity only a few ex-comfort old women??????????? korean government should look for 200,000 victims (dead or alive victims) and pay rightly pension,but the pension is only $160/per month..... certified as a comfort woman, she can get $800/month........ for comparison,japan had paid compensation in 1965 to all korean war victims. korean government has been having the duty to devised the compensation to victims.....
It seems that Japan’s most loyal ally is proving to be a little two-faced. This is the same ally that the Japanese government has declared to be the core of Japanese foreign policy. It is the same ally that the Japanese government allows to run roughshod over Japanese citizens to promote this ally’s own military and economic interests in Asia. This is the same ally that, 67 years after the war, still occupies vast amount of land in Japan’s southernmost prefecture of Okinawa. This is the same ally that introduced nuclear power to Japan and continues to influence the government’s relationship with the nuclear industry even after the Fukushima disaster.
It is now the same ally that went to a foreign nation and slapped Japan across the face, stirring up a festering problem and leaving Japan with few options.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has upset key ally Japan by reportedly demanding that all official documents refer to women drafted as prostitutes for the Japanese military during World War II as “enforced sex slaves” rather than by the euphemism “comfort women.”
The Nelson Report, which is widely read in Washington political circles, reported that Clinton is interested in the issue and considers the treatment of the victims a serious human rights violation. According to a diplomatic source in Seoul, Clinton recently objected to the term “comfort women” when she was briefed by a State Department official.
A State Department official stopped short of confirming the decision on Monday but said the treatment of the women was “deplorable.”
The periodical said Clinton’s decision shocked Japanese officials, who interpret it as siding with Korea and other countries whose citizens were also drafted as “comfort women.”
According to the Japanese media, Japan foreign minister Gemba is “seek(ing) clarification.” But this is no off-hand comment in a moment of appeasement in front of the South Koreans. This is policy paper which was no doubt well-thought out and vetted.
Unfortunately, it is also bad politics which ignores America’s own experience as occupiers in Japan.
Japan’s abhorrent practice of enslaving women to provide sex for its troops in World War II has a little-known sequel: After its surrender — with tacit approval from the U.S. occupation authorities — Japan set up a similar “comfort women” system for American GIs. An Associated Press review of historical documents and records — some never before translated into English — shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution. The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan’s atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.
Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down.
The documents show the brothels were rushed into operation as American forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945.
“Sadly, we police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the occupation troops,” recounts the official history of the Ibaraki Prefectural Police Department, whose jurisdiction is just northeast of Tokyo. “The strategy was, through the special work of experienced women, to create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls.”
Protect regular women and girls from what, we wonder? America is the most moral nation ever to exist in the history of the world, or so we were taught.
According to John W. Dower, precisely as the Japanese government had hoped when it created the prostitution facilities, while the R.A.A. was in place “the incidence of rape remained relatively low given the huge size of the occupation force“.[8]:130However, there was a resulting large rise in venereal diseases, where for example in one army unit 70% tested positive for syphilis and 50% for gonorrhea, which led the US army to close down the prostitution.[8]:130
It is important to note that the brothels were not shut down because of the moral implications of it but because of the spread of disease, brought to Japan by these very same troops.
The incidence of rape increased after the closure of the brothels, possibly eight-fold; Dower states that “According to one calculation the number of rapes and assaults on japanese women amounted to around 40 daily while the R.A.A was in operation, and then rose to an average of 330 a day after it was terminated in early 1946.”[8]:579
According to Terèse Svoboda “the number of reported rapes soared” after the closure of the brothels, and she takes this as evidence that the Japanese had been successful in suppressing incidents of rape by providing prostitutes to the soldiers.[11] Svoboda gives one example where R.A.A. facilities were active but some not yet ready to open and “hundreds of American soldiers broke into two of their facilities and raped all the women”.[11] According to Svoboda there are two large events of mass rape recorded by Yuki Tanaka at the time that the R.A.A. brothels were closed down in 1946.[11]
According to Tanaka, close to midnight on April 4, an estimated 50 GIs arriving in 3 trucks assaulted the Nakamura Hospital in Omori district.[12] Attacking at the blow of a whistle, over the period of one hour they raped more than 40 patients and an estimated 37 female staff.[13] One of the raped women had a two-day old baby that was killed by being thrown on the floor, and also some male patients who tried to protect the women were killed.[14]
According to Tanaka, on April 11, between 30 and 60 US soldiers cut phone lines to a housing block in Nagoya city, and simultaneously raped “many girls and women between the ages of 10 and 55 years.”[15]
Michael S. Molasky, Japanese literature, language and jazz researcher, states in his study of Japanese post-war novels and other pulp literature, that while rape and other violent crime was widespread in naval ports like Yokosuka and Yokohama during the first few weeks of occupation, according to Japanese police reports, the number of incidents declined shortly after and were not common on mainland Japan throughout the rest of occupation.
Up until this point, the narrative’s events are plausible. American soldiers stationed abroad did (and still do) commit abduction, rape, and even murder, although such incidents were not widespread in mainland Japan during the occupation. Japanese police records and journalistic studies indicate that most violent crimes committed by GIs occurred in naval ports such as Yokosuka during the first few weeks after the Americans arrived in 1945, and that the number declined sharply thereafter. The above passage from Chastity also points to issues which are central to a serious consideration of prostitution in postwar Japan: for example, the collaboration between police and medical authorities in enforcing a regime or discipline against women working outside the domestic sphere, the economic exploitation of female labor through regulated prostitution, and the patriarchal valorization of chastity to an extent that rape victims are left few alternatives but prostitution or suicide..“[16]:16[6]:121
There were 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture.[17] Tanaka relates that in Yokohama, the capital of the prefecture, there were 119 known rapes in September of 1945.[18]
Historians Eiji Takemae and Robert Ricketts state that “When US paratroopers landed in Sapporo, an orgy of looting, sexual violence and drunken brawling ensued. Gang rapes and other sex atrocities were not infrequent” and some of the rape victims committed suicide.[19]
In the one instance when the Japanese formed a self-help vigilante guard to protect women from off-duty GIs this was met by the US army using armored vehicles in battle formation, and the leaders received long prison terms.[19]:67
According to Dower, “more than a few incidents” of assault and rape were never reported to the police.[8]:
And we should not forget the sex problems that Okinawa has had to endure for the past 67 years, including gang rape and prostitution.
It may be true that the winners write history but all of this hardly gives Clinton a moral basis for becoming involved in the issue between Japan and South Korea. Most likely, Clinton is willing to sell out Japan on this issue as leverage with South Korea or as a warning to Japan.
The fact is, South Korea has its own problems with US troops, apparently aided by the South Korean government.
South Korea has railed for years against the Japanese government’s waffling over how much responsibility it bears for one of the ugliest chapters in its wartime history: the enslavement of women from Korea and elsewhere to work in brothels serving Japan’s imperial army. Now, a group of former prostitutes in South Korea have accused some of their country’s former leaders of a different kind of abuse: encouraging them to have sex with the American soldiers who protected South Korea from North Korea. They also accuse past South Korean governments, and the United States military, of taking a direct hand in the sex trade from the 1960s through the 1980s, working together to build a testing and treatment system to ensure that prostitutes were disease-free for American troops.
While the women have made no claims that they were coerced into prostitution by South Korean or American officials during those years, they accuse successive Korean governments of hypocrisy in calling for reparations from Japan while refusing to take a hard look at South Korea’s own history.
“Our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military,” one of the women, Kim Ae-ran, 58, said in a recent interview.
And so have other Asian nations where US troops are stationed.
Those who oppose U.S. military bases in the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand have long drawn attention to brothels clustered around bases in those countries. The nonprofit group Prostitution Research and Education estimates 400,000 prostitutes worked in Thailand in 1974 when GIs went there from Vietnam on furlough.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated in 2006 that more than 2 million people are trafficked in the global sex trade, though it noted the number could be as high as 10 million.
The U.S. military has never admitted its role in promoting prostitution in this or any other war. But sooner or later, the Pentagon must be held accountable for this severe violation of women’s rights.
Perhaps the self-important Clinton should go home and expose America’s own crimes against the Japanese and other nations before lecturing Japan on its past.
At any rate, this should be a warning for all Japanese that the US will seek its own interests over that of its allies whenever it finds it beneficial to do so. And this is the nation that Noda wants to open its doors to militarily, diplomatically, and economically. They must be paying him a lot of money to get him to bring this on the Japanese people.
Former Sex Slaves Poised to Demand Compensation from Japanese Gov't
Elderly Korean women forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese troops during World War II are continuing to hold their weekly protest rallies in front the Japanese Embassy in central Seoul.
The latest protest, which marks their 641st rally, gathered wider media attention as it followed the revelation of sealed documents related to a diplomatic treaty South Korea and Japan signed when they normalized ties in 1965.
The declassified documents offered evidence that contradicts Tokyo's claims that individual demands for compensation by Korean sex slaves had expired with the signing of the diplomatic treaty. But the declassified documents show compensation for the former sex slaves was not included in the diplomatic treaty.
"Japan must take legal responsibility for the war crimes." Every Wednesday, former ��comfort women�� stage a protest in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.
The Japanese use the euphemistic term "comfort women" to refer to the sex slaves. A South Korean civic group supporting the former sex slaves has demanded that the South Korean government renew talks with Japan.
"The Korean government should raise the sex slave issue with Japan on a diplomatic level, and strongly demand the truth, an official apology as well as legal compensation," said one civic group official.
The civic group has also launched a campaign to collect 1-million signatures in a bid to block Japan's efforts to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
"We can never forgive the Japanese government. We want the Japanese government to get down on its knees and apologize and compensate us for the unbearable pain we suffered."
Former sex slaves and the civic group have sent a letter to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun urging the government to demand an apology and compensation from Japan. They also plan to bring the issue to the United Nations.
Where in the Name of All that is Holy Are the Comfort Women? An Open Letter to Ken Burns on “The War– An Intimate History”
comfort women Issue Re-emerges
the 1970 example of then West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who dropped to his knees at a ceremony in Warsaw to symbolically atone for the crimes committed by Nazi Germany in World War II.
"If (Abe) sincerely wants a true South Korea-Japan friendship as well as peace in Asia, he should apologize for the past war crimes."
POSTED BY HEART ⋅ OCTOBER 2, 2007 ⋅ 32 COMMENTS
‘The War,’ Mr. Burns, is the starvation prostitution forced upon tens of thousands of European and Japanese girls (some barely into their teens) by the ridiculous conflicts men create to display their phallic brutality. It is also the brothel attached to a military base in Arizona stocked with ‘worn-out whores’ and reserved exclusively for black solders, so that the white GI’s would not have to ‘contaminate’ their penises by raping the same prostitutes. Thousands of black GI’s passed through this brothel daily, and who knows what insane, pathetic creatures they left dead of rape and misery.‘The War,’ Mr. Burns, is not your blind, masculine-centric vision of it, full of all these lies about valor and sacrifice and courage and nobility. There is little that is noble about the raping, war-making brute we call a soldier. — Dr. Suki Falconberg
The powerful video above begins, “I was not a human being.” I’ve been following Ken Burns’ PBS special on World War II, The War: An Intimate History. * There is much I have to say about this series. At the moment, though, I just want to publish the following letter. I’ve been continually thinking as I watched that if at least one of the nine segments did not pertain to the the Comfort Women, so-called, which I have blogged about here, here, and here, I would never forgive Burns and would certainly never take his work seriously again.
Which means I am never going to forgive Ken Burns or take his work seriously again. Because I am not seeing any photos like the photo above, of enslaved young girls, surrounded by their smiling captors. Where are scenes like this one, above, depicting women who had been tricked into thinking they had obtained jobs in a garment factory. They were assembled and photographed as though they were new”employees,” then were kidnapped and loaded into wagons, like so much livestock and taken to “Comfort Stations” where they were enslaved, prostituted, and raped by soldiers, including American GIs.
Why doesn’t Burns include interviews with, and footage of, women who had become pregnant via these rapes, like these “Comfort Women,” again guarded by a smiling soldier? These photos of degraded, brutalized women together with their smiling captors are macabre. Where are the interviews with former Comfort Women who are activists, who, like the women in the bottom photo, have been demonstrating before the Japanese Embassy every Wednesday for the past 13 years, demanding justice? Why were they not consulted for this “documentary”? Why does Burns participate in the erasure of their lives and the crimes against humanity that they suffered? The language and cadence of the title of Burns’ “documentary” bear a striking resemblance to the title of Natalie Angier’s groundbreaking feminist book, Woman: An Intimate Geography suggesting Burns has some familiarity with the book, which makes the omission of the enslaving of the “Comfort Women” dark, scary, inexcusable, misogynist. “A Letter to Ken Burns about The War: An Intimate History” By Dr. Suki Falconberg 9/28/07 ‘The War,’ Mr. Burns, is the Yokosuka rape queues in August 1945, with GI’s lined up for blocks, two abreast, to get at the Japanese girls enslaved in ‘comfort stations’ for them—with the full cooperation of the American and Japanese authorities. Destitute, vulnerable girls were raped into unconsciousness as the men joked and laughed and jostled in line, waiting their turn. Some girls bled to death. Some committed suicide—that is, the lucky ones who could escape. Not one ‘comfort girl’ has told her story—due to shame. Why did you not tell this particular ‘intimate history’ of ‘The War,’ Mr. Burns? Especially since ‘usage’ of the girls was almost 100%. Why has the small detail that almost every GI in Japan, 1945, was a rapist escaped you? Why his this big ‘dirty secret’ of war never been covered? ‘The War,’ Mr. Burns, is the men who lined up to use the prostitutes on Hotel Street in Honolulu: women were raped 100 times a day—a different man entered the girl every three minutes. Why should I mourn these rapists when they were killed in the attack at Pearl Harbor? They slaughtered the bodies of these women in a fashion far more brutal than any bombing could ever be. ‘The War,’ Mr. Burns, is the widespread rape of French girls by GI’s after they ‘liberated’ Paris. Rape by American soldiers was so common that Eisenhower actually had to acknowledge it was happening, although he did nothing to stop it. ‘The War’ is the public parks in Palermo, where pimps considerately laid out mattresses so the GI’s could fuck starving Italian girls comfortably, for a dollar or two a turn. ‘The War’ is homeless, prostituted girls in Berlin doing it in the rubble for a few cents and agreeing to ‘share’ a GI bed so they would simply have a place to sleep that night. This, after they had already had the insides raped out of them by the invading Russian army and then were labeled ‘whores’ since it was a convenient way for the authorities to deal with these ‘ruined’ women. The War’ is the village in Okinawa where GI’s raped every woman, girl, and child—the victims were too sick and starving to even try to run from their attackers. ‘The War,’ Mr. Burns, is the starvation prostitution forced upon tens of thousands of European and Japanese girls (some barely into their teens) by the ridiculous conflicts men create to display their phallic brutality. It is also the brothel attached to a military base in Arizona stocked with ‘worn-out whores’ and reserved exclusively for black solders, so that the white GI’s would not have to ‘contaminate’ their penises by raping the same prostitutes. Thousands of black GI’s passed through this brothel daily, and who knows what insane, pathetic creatures they left dead of rape and misery. ‘The War,’ Mr. Burns, is not your blind, masculine-centric vision of it, full of all these lies about valor and sacrifice and courage and nobility. There is little that is noble about the raping, war-making brute we call a soldier. I was raped and prostituted by the U.S. Military. Why don’t you tell my story, Mr. Burns? It is far more ‘colorful’ than that of these soldiers who raped their way through Europe and Asia Don’t you want to know what it’s like to be mounted by a line of soldiers? It is a hell beyond any possible imagining. It has happened to me. My PTSD, as it is so fashionably called, is far more intense than that of the men who raped the life and dignity and beauty out of me. The emotional damage to the soldier does not compare to the suffering he inflicts on the women he ravages. War is never good for women. War sexually enslaves women. Men gain by war. They have the pleasure of rape: they mount starving women, ‘cheap whores,’ and take their pleasure, and the woman is silenced forever by her shame. What a male abomination is not just your grandiose seven-part, tidy version of ‘The War,’ but PBS as well. You pretend to be enlightened but you are as blind and callous and cruel as the soldier rapists who destroyed the lives and bodies of so many women. I looked at your so-called ‘companion volume’ to the series. The index carries not one reference to rape, prostitution, military brothels, or the sexual suffering of millions of woman. How can you overlook, ignore, dismiss a ‘fact’ so enormous? As if these women simply never existed. What a betrayal of our raped bodies is your grand, masculine-centric version of ‘The War.’ Even your title indicates that you own this territory, this war, your war. It is, indeed, your war—since all wars are the product of your male phallic cruelty. War never ‘liberates’ women. War sexually destroys us. It has never been otherwise. Briseis had no say in her fate as a ‘captive’ woman. No one asked her what she thought of the arrangement. No one has asked the Filipina women trafficked onto the fifty U.S. bases in Iraq what they think of their lot as the GI’s line up for their five-minute shot inside them. Men make war because they love war. Don’t ask me to feel sorry for the way they ‘suffer.’ Dr. Suki Falconberg, Rape/Prostitution Survivor Link and thanks to Sam at Genderberg for finding the link to Falconberg’s open letter. Japan Comfort Women and the Denial of Justice Friends of the Lolas Janelle Park Lee Heart About these ads Share this: Email More Like this: Like Be the first to like this. About Heart . View all posts by Heart » « GriefOne Blog Post for Burma — October 4, 2007 » DISCUSSION 32 Responses to “Where in the Name of All that is Holy Are the Comfort Women? An Open Letter to Ken Burns on “The War– An Intimate History”” Thank-you so much for keeping these horrific crimes in your blog. I feel that when men label women and girls as “prostitutes”, they allow then to see them as sub-human. When there excuse of war, soldiers are encouraged to view all women as “whores”. They are given permission to torture in the name of relaxation. It is so sick and sad. There is no language that speak of such pain and grief. POSTED BY REBECCA | OCTOBER 2, 2007, 8:35 PM Thank you Heart and also thanks to Sam at Genderburg for continuing to raise this issue. Repeatedly we hear the same old myths – women ‘choose’ to work in prostitution. War continues to be mythologised as ‘good guys’ liberating the oppressed. Only women are never liberated, instead they continue to be perceived by these ‘good guys’ as just whores and hence male soldiers rape them with impunity. Whores – the real whores in my view are the hypocritical men who rape women and then discard them as being immoral. Even the term ‘comfort women’ was defined by men in order to hide the reality these women were men’s sexual slaves and objects – not human beings. Now I hear the European Parliament are considering differentiating between prostituted women who supposedly ‘choose’ to work in prostitution and ‘forced prostitution.’ This is contrary to the UN definition of forced trafficking, including trafficking into sexual slavery. The issue remains the same – men continue to believe there must always be a plentiful supply of discardable women and girls for men to rape, sexually abuse and then discard as rubbish. All because far too many men believe it is their right and entitlement. Why else has Ken Burns chosen to omit the realities of war from womens’ perspective. If men were raped and sexually abused in similar numbers to women there would be a global outcry but of course women in Catherine McKinnon’s excellent words – ‘are not human.’ POSTED BY JENNIFER DREW | OCTOBER 2, 2007, 9:54 PM As a women, I am so proud of those women, who still have the strength to stand up and fight back. My Goddess what courage. If there are medals in eternity they will win them. The shame is not theirs, it belongs to every man who laid their hands upon them. These women can be proud of each beautiful,bold, breath they take. POSTED BY HELZEPH | OCTOBER 2, 2007, 10:22 PM Heart can we not sign a copy of this letter, to send to PBS, and to Ken Burns (whose work I already loathed but this is beyond the pale). Next week, to do with my work, I have to “honour” November 11th, Remembrance Day, and the veterans who “gave their lives and youth so we could live in freedom”. How little can I manage and still keep my job. POSTED BY SIS | OCTOBER 2, 2007, 10:47 PM Comfort and her discontents Ken Burns has made the appalling choice not to recount history in its ferocity, but rather to build up the nation’s wish for how it wants to see itself and its past– the “Greatest Generation” pablum as coined by Tom Brokow and continued by Burns et al. Burns perpetuates myths and comfortable memories about World War II. The war is seen only through the eyes of Americans — the valorous soldiers and the sacrificing families on the home front. Even the hard edges available in an all-American review of that war go unmentioned, barely hinted at, like the killing of Japanese soldiers rather than taking them prisoner, even on the ocassions when they rarely surrendered. The problem is that such half-truths about WWII, because they do contain some truth, are harder to name and expose than outright lies and total omissions. The comfort women, the factories of women made available to American GIs — these are just some of the omissions. And as my girlfriend says, lies of omissions are still lies, just harder to combat and more insidious. Viewing the movie-for-televsion version of the war we the audience can luxuriate in our home front experience, secure in the knowledge that our loved ones were fighting only the good fight. Each night when the credits roll and the patriotic, plaintive song plays, pride swells through the heart, and only the head intervenes saying, “no, no, I am not going to run the flag up the flagpole first thing tomorrow morning.” Thanks, Ken, for making a mockery of history and making it that much harder for truth to tell her stories. POSTED BY TWITCH | OCTOBER 2, 2007, 11:26 PM Right on target and it’s reassuring to know that someone else sees through the flimsy, smarmy, fluffy tripe that is a Ken Burns film. There is no power to which he is not the sychophant. POSTED BY BEEBORB | OCTOBER 2, 2007, 11:34 PM Just going through my bank statement from Bank of America and atop the document was a blurb about the company’s support and sponsorship of the film–just informing. POSTED BY PISAQUARIRISE | OCTOBER 3, 2007, 2:03 AM You just feel like a tear drop in an ocean when you complain about these things, take some itsy action. Like me returning the pot I neglected to notice had been made in China. They could not believe it, at the store. Worse, two friends think I’m nuts. I suppose you could write a letter, cancel your credit card. Get a different one, which abuses some other segment of women struggle. I’m in a rotten mood. Rrrrrr! POSTED BY SIS | OCTOBER 3, 2007, 3:54 AM Yeah, Sis, I hear you. A lot of the time I just look at the state of the world and look at all the groups of women, and all the action/s that needs to be taken and wonder where the hell we are supposed to start. What happened to the Japanese ‘Comfort Women’ is indescribably horrific to me. And yet it is what happens to all women in all wars to varying degrees. We really need to stop all war. Period. Including the war on women that is being waged even during ‘peace’ time. How do we do this??? What can we do to say that we’ve had enough, that we won’t be taking it anymore? How do we get other women to say no too? POSTED BY ALLECTO | OCTOBER 3, 2007, 1:39 PM Well, I think we write our rears off for one thing. Most of us here are writers, and damn fine ones. Recently articles I’ve written here for my blog have been cited to all over the place, on Fox News stories, on MSNBC, on Wikipedia (many places). If we just keep it up, do our homework, write well, do the research, our voices will be heard eventually, in time. I’ve got quite a few articles now that come up on “Find Articles”, (which you have to pay for but still), which have been published in off our backs and which will be used in research people do. Here in Washington we had an incident where a young woman left her job at Fred Meyers for home and then basically vanished. They found her 8 days later (!) alive (!) down a ravine. Her SUV had missed a curve and ended up down the embankment in blackberry bushes (very thick here, they can hide a house). Although her husband traversed the length of highway many times, he didn’t see anything. She was suspended upside down by her seat belt all that time. (!) In her smashed car. Anyway, her husband reported it to the police, of course, but they didn’t find her either until finally they got a court order and “pinged” her cell phone to draw a bead on where she was. Anyway, the husband is incensed because he felt like it took the police too long to find her, in part because you have to get a court order to ping a missing person’s cell. So he wants to get legislation that will allow cell phone owners to say when they sign up that if they go missing, they give their permission to “ping” without a court order. He’s been all over the news with that and is meeting with the governor to give him a letter about the proposed legislation. I’m saying all of this because this is fresh in my mind and it’s an example of how a moment can be seized to make change. When something like this is all over the papers and someone has some idea of how things could have gone differently, it is then, when heads are rolling, that you can sometimes get access to people who can make real change, or at least to journalists who will raise some sand about it. The young woman with the horrible experience with the flip flops from Wal Mart is a good example of seizing a moment, too. Watching for those moments is central to political activism, I think, having an eye for the moments, too, which you get by voraciously reading the news. I read three newspapers every single day, the front page section, the local section, the business section, and I skim the sports. Also the lifestyle section if I see something important (that shouldn’t have been in there usually, about women). I am on a heinous number of lists where women contribute news articles. This gives a feel, though, for when the time might be right to really give some time to something, hoping it will get picked up by other, larger voices. Heart POSTED BY WOMENSSPACE | OCTOBER 3, 2007, 3:38 PM I also wish we could sign on to Falconberg’s letter somehow. What a brave and courageous woman, in contrast to those rapist soldiers. I just sent an e-mail through the “contact us” page of the war series. POSTED BY KALI | OCTOBER 3, 2007, 6:47 PM Thanks, Kali, for your example. I followed it. I just sent PBS a modified copy of my letter here. In the politest of ways I told them what a bunch of idiots they are to have given their imprimatur (sp?) to this crappy film. I don’t know what good such feedback to PBS does, but it’s one of the few ways I know of to try to let them know how badly they’ve screwed up. POSTED BY TWITCH | OCTOBER 3, 2007, 7:40 PM My heart goes out to all women raped in war – by all sides. Those photos are so telling, aren’t they? The women, so called ‘comfort women’ look sad and abused, and the men, in all the photos, smile. It is so totally sick. When is the war to free women? Will it ever come? And for the pro-prostition crowd, go fuck yourselves. There is far too much forced prostitution to defend ‘the industry’. Go on, just try to defend being raped by 20+ men per day for a little food and water. For every fucking ‘Happy Hooker’ story you have, there are hundreds who ain’t so happy. END MEN’S SEXUAL TYRANNY AGAINST WOMEN. END PROSTITUTION. END RAPE IN WAR. POSTED BY STORMY | OCTOBER 3, 2007, 8:08 PM You could always mention that you were mid-pen into buying lifetime subscriptions for PBS for all your nieces, nephews, grandchildren and several Girl Guide troops. But NOT NOW. Really money talks. So who actually $$ backed this film? Who were the on-air advertisers, and who got sponsorship mention in the credits at the end. Those people need a letter too. POSTED BY SIS | OCTOBER 3, 2007, 8:44 PM To Sis, You know, at some point today I’m going to have to get back to work on what I’m paid to do. But I just finished telling off another anti-abortion crusader what I thought of his anonymous a–. To wit: To NNHC, Let me be very clear. You and your ilk are not the arbiters of when human life begins or who has the right to end human life, if indeed, that is what a fetus is — “human” at whatever stage of development one names. Access to abortion is a moral good. Abortion is a moral good. Individuals making their own decisions instead of being forced into bringing unwanted children into the world is a moral good. Oppressing women in the name of “humanity” is NOT a moral good. What is clear is that your ridiculous, sanctimonious posts are part of a long tradition to pit women’s lives against human lives. Such a dichotomy does not exist. You are an agent of destruction — the destruction of individuals’ lives who are brave enough to make decisions about their own lives but humble enough to let you make your own decisions too. I have no patience for your disguise of crusader for little babies. You are simply the latest soldier in the war against women. POSTED BY TWITCH | OCTOBER 3, 2007, 9:19 PM Right. Geez I’ll know who to call when I want to singe someone. By the way, did you read the story I posted today on the Lorraine Rothman tribute? Can women in the States get menstrual extraction, anywhere? Think of the problems it would solve if we could perform our own extractions (literally, abortions) with Lorraine’s kid Del-Em, and our own specula, of course. It was a raging good idea, that self-administered menstrual extraction. What ever happened to it? POSTED BY SIS | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 12:54 AM Stormy, it’s like anal sex. Men who are so rah rah for this, never bend over. Why. Oh Why? POSTED BY SIS | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 1:12 AM Oh well, I’ve just had a good cry reading this, so what’s new? I used to volunteer at a refugee and asylum seekers project for destitute clients. This means that they have failed to secure status here in the UK and the projects remit (amongst other things) is to help prove their certain threat of persecution on return to their homeland. Its common knowledge that so many of women asylum-seekers are victims of savage sexual violence, but are denied refuge in the UK because their cases are unrecognised by British asylum law. Some research done with the help of counsellors at the project showed that at least 70% of the women are rape victims, some abused repeatedly while imprisoned by soldiers and police. Some are pregnant when they arrive and it’s not wanted babies they carry in their bellies. Trouble is the male powers that be don’t particularly see rape as *persecution* and gender is not specifically enumerated as one of the grounds for establishing refugee status. They have fled torture, rape and oppression, in the hope of finding sanctuary here in the UK. But once here, they have to contend with destitution – and a government system geared up to sending them back. Oh yeah, and if I hear one more Brit whinging that the “refugees” are just arriving here in the UK to secure a “better” lifestyle. I’ll scream. POSTED BY SPARKLEMATRIX | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 10:57 AM FWIW, I think Canada recently granted refugee status to women escaping “domestic” violence. Does sexual enslavement count? Gang rape? Stalking? (Too early for me to research – haven’t had my strong black tea yet. Kettle’s on.) Mary POSTED BY AMAZONWOMENRISE | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 12:01 PM Sis, I knew some women meeting back in the late 1980s who were learning about how to do menstrual extraction. This was in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m moving back there in November and will try to find them to ask what happened with that. It was quite secret and none of them was to reveal who the other members of the group were. At the time I felt it was kind of extreme and unnecessary. Now that the Supreme Court’s make-up has changed and the right wing has become so entrenched in various institutions, menstrual extraction doesn’t look so far-fetched or sci-fi anymore. POSTED BY TWITCH | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 2:34 PM Well read over in the Lorraine Rothman thread, and about her and Carol Downer’s work, and you will see it’s not extreme, that’s just the spin the medical profession puts on it to control us, keep us depending on them and their deadly and carcinogenic procedures and chemicals. What could be more extreme than high dose estrogen BCP and HRT? I’m still getting copied on tributes to her everyday in my inbox, from older (and some younger) gyne-radical feminists all over the globe. POSTED BY SIS | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 4:37 PM “Appalling” isn’t the half of it. I am unable to play those videos, as I can barely wade through the text. I am still in shock that this is what mainstream feminists (e.g., Pandagon, Shakespeare’s Sister) consider part of feminism. I know my thoughts shouldn’t go there immediately when presented with such human rights atrocities, but I’ve learned what I can expect from men at this point. To have found feminism and learned relatively popular liberal feminists were on board as well is what infuriates me most about these stories somehow. But, that’s not what I should focus on right now, I know. Utterly nauseating. POSTED BY K.A. | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 6:19 PM K.A., are you saying that Shakes and the women at Pandagon think Burns’ series is good, or? A lot lot lot of people don’t know about the comfort women, or if they know, they don’t know there were 200,000-400,000 of them. And they don’t know that the comfort women weren’t Japanese women only, and that the phenomenon wasn’t restricted to Japan, but that Japanese, Filipina, Dutch and other European women, many races of women were “comfort women;” the comfort women were kidnapped wherever the Japanese were victors during the war. That’s our task and our sad fate, as radical feminists, to be continually, continually, the messengers that bring the bad news about what has happened to women in the world. We feel it too. Nevertheless, go forth, women, let Shakes and the people at Pandagon know what you know, even if they get pissed at you. We have to do it because it’s the right thing and because we are committed to women, regardless the response. Heart POSTED BY WOMENSSPACE | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 7:17 PM And hey, K.A., I know what you mean, but don’t be afraid to watch that youtube video– it’s powerful, well done, and it shows the courage of the women. It’s extremely moving, but it’s not gratuitous in any way. Heart POSTED BY WOMENSSPACE | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 7:31 PM I think racism is playing a big role here; both in not wanting to point fingers at the Japanese (we so librul) and in *wanting* to pretend it was *only* the Japanese who did this. POSTED BY SIS | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 7:32 PM amazonwomenrise “FWIW, I think Canada recently granted refugee status to women escaping “domestic” violence“ That’s interesting. Sorry for the OT Heart but Mary we worked with a few women experiencing DV from other countries but unfortunately we could only help those from the European Union. Saying that, the laws seem to change weekly and are hard to keep up with – so it may have changed here in the UK. I doubt it though. POSTED BY SPARKLEMATRIX | OCTOBER 4, 2007, 8:34 PM Thank you for this piece. I never knew about any of this despicable horror until very recently. Keep up the amazing work. POSTED BY DESTINYSKITCHEN | OCTOBER 8, 2007, 1:13 AM I have not seen the new Burns series but I don’t doubt he did not mention the subjugation and rape of women. He writes and directs his work, he tells the stories he wants to tell. I’m not at all sure I’d want Ken Burns telling this story at all. This is something that is worth the telling in its own right, not as part of a broad history of WWII but as a part of the history of war and women. It must be written by women, preferrably by women who have experienced it first hand. It must contain first-hand accounts. It should be financed by women and their partners who care, not big corporations or advertisers. The resulting documentary or series should be distributed on CD to educators and private groups. Something like this would be a hard sell for commercial television or even PBS which relies on corporate gifts for support. A few stations in liberal markets might broadcast it, but the majority won’t. A different outlet would likely need to be found. Is anyone interested in putting this project together? I know some people with industry experience, I could contribute some names. POSTED BY ZOE | OCTOBER 13, 2007, 10:25 PM A lot lot lot of people don’t know about the comfort women, or if they know, they don’t know there were 200,000-400,000 of them. I had never been exposed to the subject before seeing it on your blog. Not once in high school, college, in my own personal research online or in other places. I’m so glad that I DO know about it now. Promoting Ken Burns helps get PBS the attention and funding they need, which I believe is really all they care about when they back his work. I’ve never watched a Ken Burns documentary and I don’t intend to anytime soon. They always seem too packaged and swiftly educational to be really worth exploring. POSTED BY GINGERMISS | OCTOBER 14, 2007, 4:48 PM Ugh. For some reason just last night I was thinking of the BBC and their shitty stories about how women who drink are asking to be raped and that awful rape trial reality show they did, and I thought how glad I was that PBS doesn’t rise to the BBC’s level of shittiness. And then I thought, “Oh damn, I bet now I’ll find out about some awful shit they’ve done, too.” Better to know than not, though, I guess. Its common knowledge that so many of women asylum-seekers are victims of savage sexual violence, but are denied refuge in the UK because their cases are unrecognised by British asylum law. Sparklematrix, didn’t they also find out about a year or so ago that British immigration officials have gone to the homes of female refugees (or maybe it was female immigrants in general) and raped them — or, as the stupid press put it, the officials “demanded sex in exchange for getting the papers they were already entitled to” or some fucking whitewashed version. Anyhow, I don’t know who this Ken Burns character is, but I will be sure to avoid his bullshit wherever I see it — I have a feeling I probably have seen his stuff without realizing it, because I remember when I started taking Dutch literature classes how shocked I was at how different their WWII stories were from what I’d been taught, which is probably because I was learning it from Burns’ movies or similar ones. One Dutch class that focused specifically on WWII was so awful, yet honest, that I didn’t even finish it. I also remember when I was actually in Holland and had the misfortune of being at somebody’s house when they were watching the movie Pearl Harbor. There’s a part at the end that says something like, “World War II was a war that greatly changed America,” but in the Dutch subtitles it was changed to “World war II was a war that greatly changed America and the world” (emphasis mine). It’s just ridiculous, this view of war that we have in the US, that it’s this noble, liberating thing, when we don’t even fucking know what it’s like. Not a single living American has been around when we’ve experienced war on our own soil, and anybody who tries to tell me that 9/11 counts gets to have their face introduced to my right fist. But try, just try, to read the stories of people from occupied countries during WWII, and then tell me if you still think that war was so sexy and liberating. And I’ve heard the bullshit about how if we hadn’t gone to war against Germany the Nazis would run the earth now and yada yada yada, but you know what would’ve been really great? For none of that shit to have happened to begin with, for NO Jews to have been killed, for Germany to not have been plunged into poverty and desperation to begin with as a result of a previous war, for so many countries that we care about less than a European country to NOT still be annihilating minorities and women, for our world to not be run not like it’s a video game but like it’s a place inhabited by actual humans and animals and all sorts of amazing life. But as long as we keep on with this stupid dominator, rah-rah war mentality, we’re just going to see the same shit happen, over and over again, because we refuse to see that the very actions we take to stamp it out only ensure that it will happen over and over again, that the very act of war makes people more violent, more desperate, more cruel and creates suffering and poverty and inequality rather than alleviating it. Really, if war could prevent war, I’m pretty goddamn sure we wouldn’t have it anymore, seeing as we’ve had so much of it already. But war isn’t really about liberating anyone or making anything better — it’s about money and power for already-powerful men, and sadly, it’s all too obvious that the supposed “side effects” of war that don’t get talked about, like sexual enslavement of women, only serve to further the agendas of the men doing the dominating. There was a time when I thought the media was the main culprit behind patriarchy, and then I thought it was religion, and now, increasingly, I’m beginning to think that it’s war. Of course, in time I’ll probably come to realize that it’s a combination of all sorts of things, but right now I’m just shocked at HOW MUCH war serves to further oppress women. People are always, “Oh, war is so oppressive to MEN because they have to fight in it more often,” but fuck, if most people were given the choice between being a man in an occupied country or a woman, which do you think they would choose? Or a choice between being a woman in the military or a man? Hey, you can either be a man and be in danger of combat-related death, or be a woman and be in danger of combat-related death, being raped by the people you’re fighting, or being raped by the guys on your own side. Hell, you might even have all three happen! No, war isn’t good for men, but it’s even worse for women. Which is why men in power don’t give a shit and keep creating more of it, and their little lackeys in the media keep trumpeting about how great it is because they’re privileged enough to be able to ignore the realities of it. POSTED BY MEKHIT | OCTOBER 22, 2007, 12:53 AM The question is: did the coward respond? POSTED BY BETTY BONNDOGGLE | OCTOBER 24, 2007, 5:28 PM Coming in late on this: I think the idea of a film about women’s experiences of war is outstanding. Someone was asking, above, how it could be distributed. Might I suggest Ladyslipper Music? They not only distribute music made by women, they also distribute feminist videos. They’d be all over this like white on rice. POSTED BY R.E. | JANUARY 25, 2008, 3:17 PM ( mochi thinking)Ms.Heart,pls study more,later you should write your opinion.as same woman,i am angry to men's violation or crimes,also war crimes.pls image bereaved family of imperial japanese soldiers would feel much distress when heard her son was not a good soldier but a just rapist killer from korean or US news media.a lot of japanese women felt sorry to korean or Dutch comfort women at first,donated her living expense into the collection box.but korean and Philippine,Chinese has been screaming "too small money!i don't permit japanese crime, JAP is yellow monkey!, give money much more!!"No offense meaning of me,pls study the facts and history to except ideology.
Book Description
Publication Date: April 16, 2012
In 1991, a Council for Korean Comfort Women’s issues was formed to record the testimony of survivors of the Japanese Labor Service Corps, a branch of the Japanese military charged with setting up brothels to serve its troops during WWII. To populate these “comfort stations,” as they were euphemistically called, the Japanese army drafted or tricked around two-hundred thousand girls, most from rural Korea, into coming to work in military “factories.” Instead, they were forced into sexual slavery.
After the war, the surviving comfort women, gripped with a crushing sense of shame, rarely if ever spoke about their ordeals. As a result, their suffering has barely been acknowledged in the history books and the government of Japan continues to deny responsibility. Realizing that the survivors were dying off, the Council was formed to record their accounts before it was too late; before Japanese revisionists erased these unfortunate events from the history books forever.
"Story of a Comfort Girl" is the moving first-person account of one such survivor.
4.0 out of 5 stars A sad, beautiful, tragic account, November 25, 2012
By Lauren Marrero (US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
I wish I could give this novel 5 stars, but there were too many grammatical errors. I hope the author revises this and releases an updated version soon. This novel is too good for those kinds of mistakes.
This novel literally kept me awake for hours. I could not put it down. Roger Rudick expertly blends history and fiction to create a novel that will have you pondering human nature and man's strange ability to inflict the most horrendous cruelty on man.
The lieutenant's kindness and strength provide an excellent contrast to the horrors of war and provide a welcome break from a very heavy subject. I am romantic enough to wish a happy ending for In Sil and the lieutenant, but this was not a love story, rather it is a tale of overcoming obstacles both temporal and corporal in order to survive. It is about the human spirit and learning to live each day, finding kindness and strength wherever it may be.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Well written, October 18, 2012
By Kathryn O'Halloran "Kathryn O'Halloran, Autho... (Reservoir, Vic Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
I left this book unread on my kindle for quite a while after buying because I knew it would be a hard story to read but, once I started, I felt the author had done an amazing job. He conveys the horrific experiences these women faced without going into gratuitous detail that would have made their story into a freak show. Instead he handles it with a great deal of sensitivity because the facts alone are horrific enough.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, informative, August 8, 2012
By kjg "kjg" (ms) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
This is a fictional account of a comfort woman - developed from interviews of actual comfort women. It is brief, informative, and heartbreaking. It deserves to be read.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Wow, June 16, 2012
By Robert Navarro - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
Roger Rudick's book "Story of a Comfort Girl" is a chilling tale of a young Korean girl ripped out of her country and taken to to a Japanese military camp. There she is forced into a life of "comforting" the soldiers. The storytelling is superb and based on actual testimony of actual comfort girls. Rudick magnificently combines historical and technically details with human testimony that touches your soul. A must read for people of Japanese and Korean ancestry.........for everyone.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Heart wrenching story of one woman's brutal suffering., May 2, 2012
By Jay (Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
Roger Rudick's "Story of A Comfort Girl" personalizes the forced prostitution and rape of tens of thousands of women in the World War II era Far East at the hands of the Japanese military.
Rudick takes the reader on a journey of reminiscence from the modern era, back decades through rural East Asia, viewing horrific suffering, pain, and death. The journey is viewed through the naive eyes of a young teen forced into a life of "servicing" soldiers yet adds a retrospective look on the events from one who survived, while 3/4ths did not.
In the modern world it is easy to forget or ignore such injustices in human history. However, after reading this account and understanding the incredible brutalities suffered by these "Comfort Women," one hopefully comes away with a new understanding and sympathy not just for this tragedy, but for the estimated 1+ million women today in the human trafficking trade around the world.
After reading "Story of a Comfort Girl" one has a new and altered look at the Japanese military of WWII and the suffering of women worldwide.
Highly Recommended.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Oh my - memorable, April 27, 2012
By Victoria (MA) - See all my reviews
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This is a tough book to read, but I just couldn't put it down. From the author's note at the end, it appears that the book is fiction (in that the woman telling the story wasn't an actual person), but that it is representative of the many interviews and conversations with actual former "comfort girls" (what a horrible reference!).
I've not doubt that the horror described actually happened. It is nearly unimaginable and totally inexcusable. I hesitate to call the offenders "animals" - because they are lower than that.
This book describes a horror that should not be erased from history. The author does an excellent job of making us care about the characters and our hearts bleed with them. The helplessness and strength are vivid.
Although I hated the message of the book, it's real, and I loved the book. It will stay with me and I've learned from it.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Honoring Their Memory, April 25, 2012
By Scott A. Carter - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
For the current generation World War II is old news, lists of dates and battles learned in school, old black & white movies. It's an event that was over a long time ago. But current historians have been discovering new facts and untold stories, made them come alive, and changed our perception of history. The immensely popular "Band Of Brothers" is just one example, where viewers come to feel that the men involved were friends and family.
So it is with "Comfort Girl..." The story of the Japanese Imperial Army kidnapping young Korean and Chinese women for use as sex slaves during the war is obscure and largely unknown. Based on fact, Roger Rudick's novel brings this story to life. It gives a great sense of who these women were, what they endured, and how these events happened. Above all, it honors the lives of these previously forgotten "comfort girls" by keeping their stories alive. I highly recommend it.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Far Beyond Excellent..., April 24, 2012
By Scriptor "jigsaw1999" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
Roger is an extremely talented writer. His story is both heartfelt and emotional, a wonderful journey to the center of a tortured soul. I highly advise picking this up, reading it, and advising others to do the same.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Heart-wrenching, April 24, 2012
By Rob - See all my reviews
This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
Kidnapped as young girls, Korean women were forced into sexual slavery, but this dark piece of history seems to have been lost. The book follows a few of these women throughout World War II and shares their stories of their courage in the face terrible anguish and violence. Given today's growing social awareness of and movement to combat human trafficking, this deeply moving book seems particularly relevant now.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!, April 22, 2012
By Ann - See all my reviews
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Brilliantly written by the author! I finished the book in 1 day and still wanting to read some more. Everyone should own a good book and this book is the one!
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and heartfelt, April 21, 2012
By Erica (Orlando, FL United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
I enjoyed the detailed and straightforward yet beautiful writing. The heroine's story is heartbreaking especially in light of the Japanese government's refusal to take ownership for its actions.
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3 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Great work, April 19, 2012
By coolhand - See all my reviews
This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
Rudick's ability to write from the point of view of someone from a different time and place is uncanny. Highly recommended.
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars It was a poignant and well told story!, April 19, 2012
By Eric S. - See all my reviews
This review is from: Story of a Comfort Girl (Kindle Edition)
We had the pleasure to attend a play of this great written work. We are happy to see it published for everyone to engage in the storyline.
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Endangered Japan (Book 2): Sex, Lies, and Comfort Women
GloriousJapanForever
