The Comfort Women Activists in Japan

As mentioned in the previous chapters, the comfort women issue was first disclosed to the public not in South Korea but in Japan. The truth regarding the comfort women issue first emerged in Japan on 1962 when Senda Kako, a journalist researching the war, uncovered a previously censored wartime photograph (Sikka, 2009). After years of research and investigation on the comfort women system, Kako published his book to the public in 1978 (Koh, 2007). More people began to actively investigate and study the issue within Japan after it has been publicly disclosed by the efforts of few historians, scholars and former victims. In 1990, Motooka Shoji, one of Socialist members of the House of Councilors of Japan, requested that the Japanese government investigate the comfort women case but the government refused this demand (Koh, 2007). The study on the issue became more active starting from the 1990s, as the issue

became widely recognized in South Korea with the testimony of former comfort women.

It was also the efforts of Japanese historian, Yoshimi Yoshiaki that allowed the Kono Statement to be possible in 1993. Another important scholar that needs to be recognized is Uemura Takashi, a former reporter of the Asahi Shimbun and currently an adjunct lecturer at Hokusei Gakuen University in Sapporo (Takashi, 2015). In 1991, when Takashi was a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, he wrote two articles on Kim Hak-Sun. Because of these two articles, Uemura has been the target of denunciations by the right extremists (Takashi, 2015). He has then been labeled as the reporter who fabricated the comfort women issue and denounced as a traitor (Takashi, 2015).

“Attacks against him became more severe after 2014, to the extent that he and his family risk losing their right to a livelihood” (Takashi, 2015).

Most of the Japanese former comfort women remained silent because of the dichotomy of virgin/prostitutes stressed by the comfort women redress movement in the early 1990s (Kimura, 2016). “As they were supposed to have worked as prostitutes or to have been sold into prostitution, it was likely that they did not consider themselves as deserving victims” (Kimura, 2016). However, there were still few Japanese comfort women, who spoke publicly about their experiences. “Shirota Suzuko strove to make her voice heard to convince the government to build a memorial for comfort women.

Although her wish was granted and a memorial was built, her story never reached society properly” (Yamashita, 2009). Shirota Suzuko is one of the few Japanese comfort women survivors who was active in publicizing her biography in Japan. She recounted her experience to newspaper reporters, went on radio, and raised money to build a modest memorial shrine in Japan to victims of the military system (Norma, 2016). The shrine remains in Chiba prefecture near the women’s shelter where Shirota lived from 1965 with other survivors of prostitution (Norma, 2016). Before she died in 1993, she quoted in a newspaper expressing happiness that South Korean comfort women had spoken out publicly (Norma, 2016). Although her story hardly reached the society at the time, her biography now contributes widely in strengthening the support base for comfort women. It is never easy to speak up against its own nation about the ugly atrocities that have been committed by their own people. It is those efforts and courage, which adds up to the process of reconciliation.

With the investigation of numerous historians and scholars, many civic organizations have been established in Japan. There are currently seven major NGOs

that are working on the comfort women issue within Japan: The Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM), the Hainan Net, the Women’s Action Network (WAN), the Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center (AJWRC), and the Peace Boat, the Violence Against Women in War-Network Japan (VAWW-NET Japan) and the War Responsibility.com (Nakayama, 2013). Many of those activists believe that reconciliation with right extremists is not a practical way to resolve the issue (Nakayama, 2013). In difficulties facing the rightist political trend within the country, Japanese activists used the help of various international organizations, such as U.N., the International Labour Organization, non-governmental organizations, labor unions and professional organizations in trying to change their government’s position on the issue (Koh, 2007).

Ikeda says: “We need to use global pressure. We try to change our government by using pressure from victim countries, other countries, and the international organizations” (Nakayama, 2013). Nohira, the executive for Peace Boat also states,

“We need international pressure because the Japanese government does not respond to domestic pressure” (Nakayama, 2013). The Japanese activists also use the strategy to strengthen the South Korean government’s pressure on the Japanese government by strengthening the global pressure (Nakayama, 2013). They also try to raise awareness within the country for majority of the Japanese people have misunderstanding or little knowledge over the issue. Nohira states that the strategy is to speak to the majority of people who do not know the issue and to get their support: “To solve this problem, the most important thing is to call on the majority of the public who is indifferent to this issue” (Nakayama, 2013).

Many Japanese comfort women supporters have also made unceasing efforts in directly pressuring its own governments. For instance, in recent years, prior to the 70^th anniversary of the end of WWII, nearly 200 scholars, journalists, lawyers and rights activists signed a statement urging Prime Minister Abe to renew apologies for the country’s imperialist past and offer to compensate former comfort women (“Scholars Urge,” 2015).

The Japanese public tend to hold more right leaning perspectives due to the ever-expanding right extremists influence across the nation. However, it is important to recognize that there are also progressives within Japan who are highly in support of the comfort women. Those groups of people believe that Japan has committed war crimes and believe that the Japanese government should take proper responsibility over

the crimes. It is the efforts of those groups of people that builds hope in the reconciliation process.