Abstract
Chapter 7 examines how the Japanese Imperial Army, with knowledge and support from the Japanese government, systematically detained and enslaved approximately 200,000 women during the Asia Pacific War, and in particular examines reactions/response to women who were taken from South Korea and the Dutch East Indies. The chapter then moves to examine the associated redress and reparation movement (RRM) and its interaction with international society.
International norms in the early 1990s encouraged states to take responsibility for their actions and to engage in various forms of reparation politics. When the comfort women issue rose to prominence in 1991, there had already been successes for the Jewish and Japanese American RRMs; however, this would not translate into a similar positive response from Japan. Japan would engage in a limited fashion with those that they had victimized, but has refused to fully acknowledge its responsibility or to come to terms with its past.
The movement is still in its infancy due to the delay in mobilization; it took almost 50 years for the gender norms to become more accepting of discussing rape, for racial norms to shift in order to consider the victims from the once occupied territories, and for civil society and democracy to flourish in the countries where these women had been victimized.
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Notes
- 1.
Gallicchio (2007, p. 7).
- 2.
Parker and Chew (1994, p. 336).
- 3.
Ibid. p. 498.
- 4.
Ibid, pp. 499, 507–509.
- 5.
Ibid. p. 499.
- 6.
As of August 5, 2013; since 80 % of the women enslaved were taken from the Korean peninsula, it can be assumed the number of current survivors outside of S. Korea is even smaller. (personal communication).
- 7.
Parker and Chew (1994, p. 502).
- 8.
Chinkin (2001, p. 341).
- 9.
Stetz and Oh (2001).
- 10.
Chinkin (2001, p. 337).
- 11.
Yamazaki (1996, p. 95).
- 12.
Yoshimi (2000, p. 33).
- 13.
Kashiwazaki (1998, p. 282).
- 14.
Beasley (1987, p. 31).
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Ibid. pp. 33–34.
- 17.
Ibid. p. 32.
- 18.
Ibid. pp. 85–91.
- 19.
Ibid. p. 243.
- 20.
Lu, et. al (2005, pp. 100–101, 113).
- 21.
Chang (1997).
- 22.
War Victimization and Japan: International Public Hearing Report, (1993, p. 11); and Parker and Chew, (1994, p. 503). The Second Sino-Japanese War took place from July 7, 1937 to September 9, 1945.
- 23.
Yoshimi (2000, p. 60).
- 24.
Ibid. p. 59
- 25.
War Victimization and Japan: International Public Hearing Report, (1993, p. 12).
- 26.
Oh (2001, p. 10).
- 27.
International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, Geneva, 30 September 1921.
- 28.
Yoshimi (2000, p. 100).
- 29.
Ibid. p. 101.
- 30.
Ibid. p. 154.
- 31.
Yoshimi (2000, p. 155).
- 32.
Ibid. p. 155
- 33.
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2009, p. 7).
- 34.
Yoshimi (2000, pp. 160–161).
- 35.
The Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (1997, p. 2).
- 36.
Yoshimi (2000, pp. 160–161, 7).
- 37.
Ibid. p. 164.
- 38.
Yoshimi (2000, p. 165).
- 39.
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2009, p. 8).
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
United States Office of War Information (1944).
- 42.
Ibid.
- 43.
Ibid.
- 44.
Orr (2001, p. 17).
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender (Potsdam, July 26, 1945).
- 47.
Lind (2008, pp. 30–31).
- 48.
- 49.
Schonberger (1989).
- 50.
Lind (2008, p. 30).
- 51.
Ibid.
- 52.
Orr (2001, p. 16).
- 53.
The initial RRM movements for the German genocides were in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the British Mandate of Palestine. Regarding the United States RRM, the only attacks recorded were in Alaska and Hawaii.
- 54.
Maga (2001, p. xi).
- 55.
Lind (2008, p. 31).
- 56.
Dolgopol (1995, p. 149).
- 57.
Ibid.
- 58.
Ibid.
- 59.
Lind (2008, p. 32).
- 60.
Treaty of Peace with Japan (2011).
- 61.
Lind (2008, p. 32).
- 62.
Chinkin (2001, p. 335).
- 63.
Lind (2008, p. 34).
- 64.
Stetz and Oh (2001, p. xv).
- 65.
Yamazaki (2006, p. 29).
- 66.
Oh (2001, p. 15).
- 67.
Parker and Chew (1994, p. 500).
- 68.
Ibid. p. 501.
- 69.
Weiner (1994, p. 2).
- 70.
War Victimization and Japan: International Public Hearing Report (1993, p. 9).
- 71.
Yamazaki (2006, p. 58).
- 72.
Henson (1996).
- 73.
History. (2010, pp. 15–16).
- 74.
History. (2010).
- 75.
Yoshimi (2000, p. 7).
- 76.
Yamazaki (2006, p. 59).
- 77.
Yamazaki (2006, p. 59).
- 78.
Ibid. p. 60.
- 79.
Ibid. p. 63.
- 80.
War Victimization and Japan: International Public Hearing Report (1993 p. vi).
- 81.
Yamazaki (2006, p. 64).
- 82.
Yamazaki (2006, pp. 64–65).
- 83.
Lind (2008, p. 66).
- 84.
BBC News (2010).
- 85.
William Underwood, Mitsubishi, p. 18.
- 86.
United Nations Economic and Social Council (1996, p. 4).
- 87.
Ibid. paragraph 7, p. 4.
- 88.
Ibid. paragraph 10, p. 4.
- 89.
Ibid. p. 22.
- 90.
Ibid. p. 22.
- 91.
A People’s Tribunal is a hearing put on by a social movement, victimized group, or other organization. It can be similar to trials or truth commissions and can be used to bring attention to human rights.
- 92.
Prosecutors and Peoples of Asia Pacific Region v. Hirohito; Prosecutors and Peoples of Asia Pacific Region v. Japan, Summary of Findings and Preliminary Judgment, quoted in Chinkin (2001, p. 336).
- 93.
Chinkin (2001, p. 335).
- 94.
Ibid. p. 337.
- 95.
Ibid. p. 338.
- 96.
Ibid. p. 339.
- 97.
U.S. House, Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan should formally acknowledge and accept responsibility for its sexual enslavement of young women, known to the world as “comfort women”, during its colonial occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II, and for other purposes. 109th Congress. 2nd session. H.Res. 759.IH.
- 98.
U.S. House. A resolution expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as “comfort women”, during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II. 110th Congress. H.Res.121
- 99.
VanderHeide (2007).
- 100.
Friends of “Comfort Women” in Australia, “Action Summary,” http://fcwa.org.au/, accessed on March 1, 2010.
- 101.
Murayama (1994, pp. 52–53).
- 102.
Sub-committee to Address the Wartime Comfort Women Issue (1994, p. 55).
- 103.
An Appeal for Donations for the Asian Women’s Fund (1995, p. 58).
- 104.
Ibid. pp. 58–59.
- 105.
Lind (2008, p. 66).
- 106.
Chinkin (2001, p. 335).
- 107.
“History,” (2010).
- 108.
Goodman (2004, p. 186).
- 109.
U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs (2007).
- 110.
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2009, p. 2).
- 111.
Ibid.
- 112.
Ibid. p. 3.
- 113.
Ibid.
- 114.
Lind (2008, p. 66).
- 115.
Yamazaki (2006, p. 65).
- 116.
Ibid.
- 117.
Yamazaki (2006, p. 65).
- 118.
Lind (2008, p. 86).
- 119.
By 2006, only two textbooks mentioned the comfort women, the adoption rate for both of these texts combined was only 17.3 % of schools. See United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, The “Comfort Women” Issue.
- 120.
Niksch (2007, p. 2).
- 121.
Niksch (2007, pp. 4–5).
- 122.
European Parliament (2007).
- 123.
The Washington Post reports a small political protest (ranging from 1 person to a few dozen people) in front of the White House every day for the last 32 years, http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/05/02/connie-picciotto-has-kept-vigil-near-the-white-house-for-32-years-why-and-at-what-cost/. Another website reports that a small group of Gandhians has protested outside a slaughter house every day for the last 25 years. http://www.ketan.net/art2_46.html. These are the only protests that have been running for a longer period of time that I am aware of.
- 124.
May 22, 2013 Personal observation and discussions.
- 125.
Ibid.
- 126.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung Jae quoted in “Statue of ‘comfort woman’ erected outside Japanese Embassy in Seoul.” (2013)
- 127.
Ibid.
- 128.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung Jae quoted in Choe Sang-Hun, “Statue Deepens Dispute Over Wartime Sexual Slavery,” New York Times, December 15, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/asia/statute-in-seoul-becomes-focal-point-of-dispute-between-south-korea-and-japan.html?_r=0, accessed on August 5, 2013.
- 129.
Semple (2013).
- 130.
Hyun (2013).
- 131.
Levine (2013).
- 132.
“About Us.”(2013).
- 133.
May 22, 2013 Personal observation and discussions.
- 134.
Gluck (2007, p. 67).
- 135.
Ibid. p. 72.
- 136.
Ibid. p. 73.
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Wolfe, S. (2014). Redress and Reparation Movements (RRM) in Response to the Japanese Comfort Women System. In: The Politics of Reparations and Apologies. Springer Series in Transitional Justice, vol 7. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9185-9_7
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