- Comfort Women
- War and the Women’s Human Rights
Comfort Women
Table of Contents Open Contents
This is the outcome of a team of 11 researchers and activists who transcribed the testimonies of 12 former comfort women. The title includes Volume VI, the last volume of the six-part series. The series began in 1993 and ended with the sixth volume in 2004. Instead of the subtitle “Korean military comfort women forced into sex slavery,” used throughout the five volumes, the sixth one adopted the quite modest subtitle “Stories in History.”
In the history of the comfort women issue and pursuit of a suitable resolution, oral statements by the survivors of the slavery have been undeniable proof of Japan’s culpability in the matter. In a situation where the Japanese government continuously denied its involvement and responsibility, we had to stress the forceful nature of the recruitment in the women’s testimonies. After more than ten years since the first volume’s publication, “Korean military comfort women forced into sex slavery” has become the prototype of comfort women’s experience in our collective memory. For this reason, the personal memories of victims who were even slightly ambiguous were not included.
The fact that this is the final volume in a six-part series carries extra weight. One must note that the voices of women in this volume are heard only after 60 women have exhausted what they had to say in the previous five volumes for 11 years. Behind this important shift from asking to get answers that you want to hear to passive listening, there was social progress.
One of the interviewers said on page 13, “Unlike testimonies that require strict adherence to factual truth, we wanted to focus more on the subjective experience to shift the discourse toward a personal story.” Instead of being obsessed with proving the forceful nature of these acts, we thought this is the time for us to relate their experience as part of the victims’ collective memory (pp. 14-15). To do that, we wanted to hear the personal stories of the victims and move away from testimony and toward their story.
Although the research team calls the 12 women in this book Japanese comfort women, the description of each of them is quite unique from childhood through their time in comfort stations up to today. The narrative has been standardized into a timeline from birth, childhood, family, how she ended up in a brothel, the itinerary, how she came back home, and life after returning to Korea. But the details in it are widely variegated and the interviewers ask you to focus more on them.
For this reason, the reader of this book is advised to read the foreword written by the research team before setting out to read the stories of the 12 women: Gong Jeom-yeop, Kim Hwa-ja (pseudonym), Jeong Seo-un, Kang Il-chul, Seok Sun-hee (pseudonym), Lee Ok-sun, Lim Jeong-ja (pseudonym), Noh Chung-ja, Jang Jum-dol, Kim Bong-i (pseudonym), Kim Sun-ak, and Gil Won-ok. In the foreword, the interviewers give detailed instructions on how to read the stories instead of testimonies, where to look for subtitles, column headings, quotation marks, commas, and what’s inside the parentheses. This is enough evidence to show how hard the research team worked to focus on vivid stories of survival and away from the forcefulness controversy. After reading the foreword, the reader can begin with any of the 12 stories.
At the end of the book, there are reports of interview failures. These are stories of women who are still reluctant to come forward out of fear and shame. While reading these, we hope the reader thinks about how much progress we have made in treating sex crime victims. The research team members said in the first volume 11 years ago, “The six-part series could become a starting point for helping our society improve perceptions toward those considered unfit.” The same is still true.
In the history of the comfort women issue and pursuit of a suitable resolution, oral statements by the survivors of the slavery have been undeniable proof of Japan’s culpability in the matter. In a situation where the Japanese government continuously denied its involvement and responsibility, we had to stress the forceful nature of the recruitment in the women’s testimonies. After more than ten years since the first volume’s publication, “Korean military comfort women forced into sex slavery” has become the prototype of comfort women’s experience in our collective memory. For this reason, the personal memories of victims who were even slightly ambiguous were not included.
The fact that this is the final volume in a six-part series carries extra weight. One must note that the voices of women in this volume are heard only after 60 women have exhausted what they had to say in the previous five volumes for 11 years. Behind this important shift from asking to get answers that you want to hear to passive listening, there was social progress.
One of the interviewers said on page 13, “Unlike testimonies that require strict adherence to factual truth, we wanted to focus more on the subjective experience to shift the discourse toward a personal story.” Instead of being obsessed with proving the forceful nature of these acts, we thought this is the time for us to relate their experience as part of the victims’ collective memory (pp. 14-15). To do that, we wanted to hear the personal stories of the victims and move away from testimony and toward their story.
Although the research team calls the 12 women in this book Japanese comfort women, the description of each of them is quite unique from childhood through their time in comfort stations up to today. The narrative has been standardized into a timeline from birth, childhood, family, how she ended up in a brothel, the itinerary, how she came back home, and life after returning to Korea. But the details in it are widely variegated and the interviewers ask you to focus more on them.
For this reason, the reader of this book is advised to read the foreword written by the research team before setting out to read the stories of the 12 women: Gong Jeom-yeop, Kim Hwa-ja (pseudonym), Jeong Seo-un, Kang Il-chul, Seok Sun-hee (pseudonym), Lee Ok-sun, Lim Jeong-ja (pseudonym), Noh Chung-ja, Jang Jum-dol, Kim Bong-i (pseudonym), Kim Sun-ak, and Gil Won-ok. In the foreword, the interviewers give detailed instructions on how to read the stories instead of testimonies, where to look for subtitles, column headings, quotation marks, commas, and what’s inside the parentheses. This is enough evidence to show how hard the research team worked to focus on vivid stories of survival and away from the forcefulness controversy. After reading the foreword, the reader can begin with any of the 12 stories.
At the end of the book, there are reports of interview failures. These are stories of women who are still reluctant to come forward out of fear and shame. While reading these, we hope the reader thinks about how much progress we have made in treating sex crime victims. The research team members said in the first volume 11 years ago, “The six-part series could become a starting point for helping our society improve perceptions toward those considered unfit.” The same is still true.