Activists mark ‘comfort women’ day
Human rights activists rallied on Monday in front of the Japanese consulate in San Francisco, demanding justice for women kept as sexual slaves by the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II.
The rally was in honor of International Comfort Women Day, using the euphemism for the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military at the time.
“In court we say, justice delayed is justice denied,” said Lillian Sing, co-chair of the Comfort Women Justice Coalition and a retired judge of San Francisco Superior Court. “On this International Comfort Women Day, we call upon Japan to do what Germany did over 70 years ago — apologize, take responsibility for your crimes and resolve the “comfort women” issue according to the international standard.”
Led by the Comfort Women Justice Coalition, a San Francisco-based grassroots coalition consisting of more than a dozen multiethnic organizations, around 100 people turned out for the demonstration, holding signs and chanting. Representatives from other organizations also spoke.
On Aug 14, 1991, the late Hak-soon Kim, a South Korean human rights activist and former “comfort woman”, was the first to speak out and demand justice from the Japanese government.
Before and during World War II, hundreds of thousands of victims from more than a dozen countries suffered from the Imperial Army of Japan’s sexual slavery system.
“The world cannot wait any longer. Justice has been denied for too long. It is already a crime to delay it all this time,” said Sing. “Today only 14 comfort women from China are still alive out of an estimated 200,000 Chinese girls and women who were kidnapped and sexually enslaved by Japan during World War II,” she said.
Huang Youliang, the last victim to have sued the Japanese government over sex slavery on the Chinese mainland, died on Saturday at the age of 90 at her home in the village of Yidui in Hainan province.
In October 1941, the 15-year-old Huang was raped when Japanese troops invaded her hometown. She was later forced into military prostitution for two years.
“This news (of Huang’s death) adds great sadness and a sense of urgency that we must move quickly to add pressure on the Japanese government to formally acknowledge its government responsibility and offer an official and unequivocal apology to all victims around the globe,” said Phyllis Kim, executive director of the Korean American Forum of California and a member of the CWJC executive committee.