Thankfully, I’ve never been raped. But I’ve been sexually harassed and even assaulted...like one third of world’s women. That’s not easy to admit, not even to our own selves. We keep quiet -- in shock, in fear, in trauma, in embarrassment and in denial. It takes courage to speak about it. It takes awareness to prevent it. It takes all of us to end it.
It’s been haunting me these past few days that I didn’t know about the International Comfort Women Day this past August 14th...as someone who feels compelled to shed more light on the plight of more than 200,000 “comfort women” who were coerced into working at Japanese Imperial military’s "comfort stations" where they were raped up to 40 times a day.
These “comfort women” were actually not quite women. They were young girls forcibly removed from their homelands, mostly in South Korea, Taiwan, China the Philippines, and other Japanese-occupied territories during World War II. After the war ended, many died, committed suicide or were afflicted with venereal diseases. There was so much stigma that they suffered in silence until the 1990s when a few valiant women spoke up and demanded an apology from the Japanese Government.
Ultimately their audacity and tenacity led to the historic 2007 passage of United States Congress House Resolution 121, sponsored by Congressman Mike Honda. The bill categorically asked the Government of Japan to “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.” It gave momentum to the cause and inspired a global movement to seek justice for the comfort women.
In December 2011, the first Statue of Peace (Statue of a Girl) was erected in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Korea, to commemorate the 1,000th weekly 'Wednesday Demonstrations' led by surviving comfort women. The second Statue, built in Busan in January of this year, is located in front of the Japanese Consulate. I visited both during my recent visit to Korea. I sat next to the Girl -- in stillness, in prayer, in pain, in sympathy and in anger.
She could’ve been my grandmother.
I could’ve been her.
Any girl in the world being sexually abused is her.
It’s estimated that almost 21 million people worldwide are trafficked for sexual exploitation. Majority are women and girls. And sexual violence occurs much more frequently and commonly in our own communities. For example, every 98 seconds someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. It happens on the streets, in the homes, at workplaces, and school campuses. It’s got to stop.
I’ve had the honor of working for a US Congressman who was a sponsor of H. Res 121, and was privileged to meet a couple of the 37 remaining Korean comfort women when they visited the US Congress on multiple occasions. Each time I saw them, I was awed: They’re nearing 95 years old. It’s been a long and arduous fight. They still haven’t received their apology from the Japanese Government. Yet they keep charging on.
I dare say I think I know why. What they’re fighting for is more than an apology for themselves; it’s universal. I believe they’re advocating for a more just world. My Korean grandmothers are fighting for me...for our sisters, our nieces, our daughters and for all girls in the world who are victims of sexual assault but may not even know it or can’t help themselves.
The harsh reality is that 99 percent of perpetrators of sexual violence that will walk free. Not just as a society, but as individuals, we must make it very discomforting and uncomfortable for sexual predators...because there was nothing comforting or comfortable about being a “comfort women.” Turning a blind eye enables the bastards. Report them. Shame them. Punish them. Fight them.
