Profile
Achievement
You have not received any achievements.comfortwomen1's Recent Snippets
- All /
« Prev 1 Next »
Member since 01/26/2019
Name: comfort women
Comfort Women – Forced Slaves or Paid Sex Workers?\r\nIf you find yourself near the Japanese consulate in Hong Kong, the chances are you may encounter a protest aimed at the shameful historical event that happened during World War II when the army of Japan made thousands of females from Korean peninsula into comfort women and made them serve soldiers in their brothels.\r\nIt is interesting to mention that you can find over 20 statues across East Asia featuring comfort women. Everything started in Seoul when the “Statue of Peace” was created in 2011 outside of the Embassy of Japan. Numerous anti-Japanese protests occur here, but a portion of them doesn’t have anything to do with the tragic historical event. Instead, the protests focus on particular islands that both Japan and South Korea claim.\r\nThe protesters will claim that Japan never sincerely apologized, although this country even paid compensation for what was done to Korean comfort women. If we journey back into history, we will discover different estimations, but all historians agree that a huge number of women was made into sex slaves to the Japanese army – some even claim 200,000 of them. Today, you won’t find more than a couple of dozens of them alive, and they do not deserve to be a part of the current political agenda whose goal is not restoring their dignity.\r\nJapan has agreed to pay more than $8 million based on the agreement signed in 2015, but the statistics indicate that 75% Koreans do not believe this settled the issue. On the contrary, they erected another statue in Busan, and the Japanese considered a problem it was near their consulate and requested removal. When the Korean government refused, Japan took certain diplomatic measures, such as recalling diplomats. Despite that, the Koreans continue to remember what happened to comfort women. The country established August 14 as the International Memorial Day and they even plan to establish a research institute and museum.\r\nHowever, even South Korea didn’t pay much attention to comfort women testimonies at first. In fact, during the 1990s, you could only find a single location in the country remembering the tragedy – the House of Sharing that features brutal paintings which depict what happened. \r\nWriter Park Yu-Has raised a lot of controversy with her book “Comfort Women of the Empire” published in 2013. She insisted that not everything revolves about making girls work in Japanese army brothels. While some of them were servants, Park insists it shouldn’t be forgotten others were sex workers that were regularly paid. \r\nThe public didn’t react positively to the book, and the writer has even pronounced a traitor who is on the side of the Japanese. However, no one can neglect that Park successfully pinpointed the story of comfort women is complex and needs to be thoroughly examined just as actions of all sides included in the war.