GRSJ224/Comfort Women Issue In Korea and Japan

Introduction

Comfort Women represent that girls and women who were recruited and forced to serve as sexual slaves. During the Asia-Pacific War(1931-1945), countless young Korean girls were imposed to provide sexual services to the Japanese military, not only officers but also rank-and-file men.Through this process, many young women have died and suffered from sexual abuse and discrimination. Comfort women issue is related to human’s right and discrimination that has to be solved. However, this issue is not completely solved and the survivors are still struggling against to Japan.

History

During the Asia-Pacific War, Japanese Government started to establish places which are called "comfort station" in order to keep young women for a special purpose and it spread out all over in Asia. Countless teenager and women were recruited by diverse means such as trafficking, deception and abduction. The ostensible purpose of comfort women was working in factories or helping Japanese army as an assistant. However, countless young women had experienced the terrible crimes that are forcing them into sexual slavery to the Japanese military. Hundreds of thousands of girls suffered from sexual assaults and treated as soldiers' plaything.In this process, at least 200,000 girls and women were required to work under terrible and dangerous places to serve the Japanese soldiers sexually. Soldiers assaulted women by tattooing on their body and even killed them without guilt. Even though many victims were sacrificed, there are no specific documents including their information so, it was difficult to recognize who they were exactly and to estimate the number of comfort women. After the war, Japan killed comfort women to hide and remove all of the evidence and denied the existence of comfort women. The victims experienced discrimination like being treated as a prostitute and suffered from the trauma until now. Comfort women issue was becoming a serious issue for victims who claim for apologies from Japan but it is still not completely resolved between Korea and Japan.

Perspective of Korea

Comfort women issue is one of the serious and important issues in Korea. Korean media have blamed the Japanese government’s attitude to treat this issue. Especially, they pointed out Japan’s attempts to deny the truth, to avoid legal responsibilities, and to change the Kono statement. Korean presidents made an effort to require Japan to apologize and to offer proper compensation to the victims. However, comfort women did not receive any apology from Japan about the discrimination and sexual assaults from Japanese soldiers. Since many comfort women are already dead, a handful alive comfort women are struggling for this action. Korean describes comfort women are a victim of the war and wants to get appropriate compensation for victims. In order to help comfort women, there are many movements such as fundraising financial support, making a movie and documentary about comfort women and protecting the comfort woman statue in Japan.

Perspective of Japan

For Japan, comfort women issue is one of the issues that Japan does not want to expose to the public. If it is true, they can be criticized and required to take responsibilities of this issue. In 1993, through the Kono statement, Japan showed the formal position that Japan admits the existence of comfort women and comfort women were recruited without their will. Alive comfort women are the evidence of the existence of comfort women, however, Japan does not take further action for them. Prime Minister Noda refused to take action for the comfort women and insisted that compensation is already settled through Japan-South Korea Claims Settlement Agreement which is established in 1967. Also, Japanese administration of Shinzo Abe also denied the existence of comfort women and kept insisting that there was no evidence to support it. They are denying the comfort women however, they try to revise Kono statement instead of getting rid of the statement in order to avoid social criticism. Instead of admitting the truth, Japan avoids it and refuses to resolve it. Korea describes comfort women as a sufferer from the discrimination and sexual assault from the war, however, Japan does not consider comfort women as a victim.

Sign of Reconciliation

Since Japan refused to resolve the comfort women issue, Korea has failed to get the solution for it. President Lee Myung-bak stated the comfort women issue with Japan’s Prime Minister Noda to emphasize him to lead to reach a solution. However, instead of reaching the solution, Noda required removing the comfort woman statue which is located in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Korea rejected the demand and required Japan to apologize to the victims with proper compensation but Japan refused it. Negotiations were broke down. In 2007 the Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo insisted that no evidence existed to prove that coercion was enforced. Japan is obliged under international law to punish the perpetrators but there is no people have been punished. And comfort women issue is still on-going between Korea and Japan.

Conclusion

Discrimination has been existed not only in the history but also in modern society. To resolve discrimination, strong and fair social system is required to protect people from an unfair condition and victims must receive proper compensation for their sacrifice. The comfort women issues demonstrate that people who were experienced discrimination under the unscrupulous situation still suffered from trauma and did not get proper reparation. It indicates that the victims are still in pain if the discrimination and assault are denied and disregarded.

References

1. Hyeong-Jun Park(2016). News Reporting on Comfort Women: Framing, Frame Difference, and Frame Changing in Four South Korean and Japanese Newspapers, 1998-2013 from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1851696457/fulltextPDF/C4D35CD8863248CDPQ/1?accountid=14656

2. Jonsseon, G(2015). Can the Japan-Korea Dispute on "Comfort Women" be Resolved? from http://gw2jh3xr2c.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fsummon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Can+the+Japan-Korea+Dispute+on+%22Comfort+Women%22+be+Resolved%3F&rft.jtitle=KOREA+OBSERVER&rft.au=Jonsson%2C+G&rft.date=2015&rft.pub=INST+KOREAN+STUDIES&rft.issn=0023-3919&rft.volume=46&rft.issue=3&rft.spage=489&rft.epage=515&rft.externalDBID=n%2Fa&rft.externalDocID=000362156200003&paramdict=en-US

3. Jee Hoon Parka, KyongWeon Lee, Michelle D. Handa, Keith A. Andersonb ,and Tess E. Schleitwilerc (2016). Korean Survivors of Japanese "Comfort Women" System: Understanding the Lifelong Consequences of Early Life Trauma from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01634372.2016.1204642?needAccess=true

4. Ji Young Kim(2017). Settlement Without Consensus: International Pressure, Domestic Backlash, and the Comfort Women Issue in Japan from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/paaf/paaf/2017/00000090/00000001/art00004;jsessionid=1bvefxwlzdvnu.x-ic-live-02

5. Muta Kazue(2016). The ‘comfort women’ issue and the embedded culture of sexual violence in contemporary Japan from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0011392116640475

6. Newsis(2018, April). 일본 정부 또 위안부 도발.."강제연행 없었다." Retrieved Apr, 2018 from, http://www.newsis.com/view/?id=NISX20180409_0000275861&cID=10101&pID=10100 "Japanese government provokes Comfort Woman issue: There was no compulsion"