‘Comfort women,’ from WWII to Cuomo
Last Friday, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple stood before a scrum of reporters to announce the allegations by “Executive Assistant #1” against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. “I had a female victim come forward, which had to be the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life, and make an allegation of criminal conduct against the governor,” he said.
The woman has since identified herself and Cuomo has resigned, despite attributing his alleged sexual misconduct to misinterpretation.
What is particularly shocking is that Cuomo was a widely held champion of women. But recall how Bill Cosby was “America’s Dad” for a generation before he was accused by 60-odd women of rape and sexual battery. Despite being convicted, Cosby was released after just three years because of a prosecutor’s alleged verbal promise, epitomizing the worst nightmare of women who publicly disclose their sexual harassment and assault.
It is no surprise then that victims of sexual harassment and assault are extremely reluctant to speak out: The likelihood of denial, debilitating accusations, shame and retaliation is far greater than that of justice.
Imagine, then, how much courage it takes to publicly accuse a government of sexual enslavement.
Thirty years before Cuomo’s resignation, a South Korean woman named Kim Hak-sun broke her silence and testified to the press in Seoul about the “comfort women” system of the Japanese Imperial Army, in which she and hundreds of thousands of women and girls from 13 Asian-Pacific countries were sexually enslaved between 1931 to 1945. Since 2018, South Korea and other countries have sought to commemorate Aug. 14, the day of Kim Hak-sun’s testimony, as International Memorial Day for “comfort women.”
“Comfort women,” a euphemism and ironically also an apt description of the attitudes toward gender held by many powerful men like Cuomo, are no doubt among the most neglected victims of WWII. Japan steadfastly refuses to unambiguously acknowledge its crime while apologists seek to discredit victim testimonies. Consequently, Japan has been accused of trying to whitewash its wartime past.
In denying its past, Japan is committing yet another crime. Victims deserve an acknowledgment of their trauma. Japan’s refusal to admit to its systematic enslavement of hundreds of thousands of women damns its victims again. It tells them that they do not matter and condemns them to relive their rape, mutilation and torture.
I was the first Asian American female judge in Northern California, serving for three decades. And I loved my job. But I nevertheless decided to retire in 2015 so that I could dedicate myself to building a memorial to “comfort women” free of professional constraints — before history erased all trace of them.
In 2017, I and former San Francisco Superior Court Judge Julie Tang unveiled the “Comfort Women” Memorial in San Francisco, a sculpture of an elderly woman gazing up at three young girls standing on a pedestal in a circle, clasping hands.
The woman in the memorial is modeled after Kim Hak-sun. One girl on the pedestal is Chinese, another Korean, and the third Filipina — representing the three largest ethnic groups of “comfort women.” The three girls in the memorial are neither submissive nor sexualized. The strength of their grips and their steady gazes belie their bloodied lower halves. Kim Hak-sun appears to be reliving her trauma through the circularity of the girls’ formation. But the girls are looking forward, trying to put their trauma behind them.
This small acknowledgment of the trauma of “comfort women” in one small corner of the world matters, because it tells survivors of sexual assault that they matter.
Even in resigning, Cuomo refused to accept responsibility for his alleged misconduct and wrote off the pain of his accusers to “cultural and generational shifts.” Whataboutism, victim-blaming and flatout denial are clearly not unique to one culture or race. For every story of sexual assault or rape that comes to light, there are many times more that die in the shadows.
The “comfort women” memorial, intended to memorialize the sexually enslaved victims of the Japanese Imperial Army, is thus a monument to the courage of all victims of sexual assault who come forth with little hope of acknowledgment or justice.
Lillian Sing was the first Asian American female judge in Northern California and is co-chair of the “Comfort Women” Justice Coalition. Gitika Nalwa, a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, is a research fellow at Stanford’s Center for Asian Health and Research Education.