V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, with women’s groups from East and SouthEast Asia announced a Global V-Day Campaign For Justice To ‘Comfort Women’ at an invited gathering of women’s leaders and Bejing+10 representatives on Monday, February 28 in NYC at the UN Plaza hotel.
The euphemism ‘comfort women’ was coined by imperial Japan to refer to young females of various ethnic and national backgrounds who were forced to offer sexual services to the Japanese troops during the Asia/Pacific Wars between 1932 and 1945.
V-Day Special Representative to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East Hibaaq Osman previously convened with the women’s groups from East and Southeast Asia in Seoul, Korea November 29-30, 2004 where the outline of the global campaign was developed.
At the V-Day convened meetings in November, the groups discussed means to bring global attention to the issue and to bring justice to ‘Comfort Women’ survivors.
The Global V-Day Campaign For Justice To ‘Comfort Women’ announced today is the result. The campaign will be a multi-national effort.
Highlights include
- Global Day of Action in front of Japanese embassies on August 10, 2005
- A global petition to be signed by 1 million and presented to the UN http://www.womenandwar.net/english/sign_en.php
- 60 days of demonstrations and survivors’ testimonies leading up to the 60th anniversary of the war’s end (the Netherlands)
- A street march and folk song competition featuring the survivors and national celebrities (Taiwan)
- Photographic exhibits, film tours, testimonial books (Japan, Philippines, and Taiwan)
- Campaign for ‘comfort women’ history in textbooks (Japan and South Korea)
- V-Day benefit performances of “The Vagina Monologues” with education about the ‘comfort women’ history and their struggle for justice (Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, South Korea)
- Construction of museums to document the enslavement of civilians as ‘comfort women’ and their ongoing struggle for justice from the Japanese government (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) Spring 2006.
The global campaign will be the focus of V-Day's 2006 Spotlight. Each year V-Day spotlights a particular group of women who are experiencing violence with the goal of raising awareness and funds to put a worldwide media spotlight on this area and to raise funds to aide groups who are addressing it. Each V-Day event is asked to donate between 1-10% of their proceeds to the Spotlight. The 2004 Spotlight on Missing and Murdered Women in Juarez, Mexico raised over $250,000 and placed an international media spotlight on the issue resulting in widespread coverage in print, TV,and radio outlets.
Groups in partnership with the February launch include:
- The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (South Korea)
- Japan V-Day Steering Committee (Japan)
- Asian Centre for Women’s Human Rights (Philippines)
- Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation (Taiwan)
- FOKUPERS – Communication Forum for East Timorese Women (Timor L’Este)
- Indonesian Women’s Association for Justice (Indonesia)
- Stichting Japanse Ereschulden - Japanese Honorary Debts Foundation (The Netherlands)
Media inquiries should be directed to Susan Celia Swan/Kate Fisher at (212) 253-1823 or by email
Background on “comfort women’:
The euphemism ‘comfort women’ was coined by imperial Japan to refer to young females of various ethnic and national backgrounds who were forced to offer sexual services to the Japanese troops during the Asia/Pacific Wars between 1932 and 1945. Some were minors sold into ‘comfort stations’; others were deceptively recruited by middlemen; still more were detained and forcibly abducted. Estimates of the number of ‘comfort women’ range between 50,000 to 200,000.
In the early 1990s, Korean victims of Japan’s military sexual slavery broke their silence and came forward nearly a half century after WWII, followed by other survivors in China, Taiwan, North Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Timor L’Este. Now the aging survivors are dying off one by one without redress from the Japanese government, which still denies legal responsibility.. In South Korea, the elderly ‘comfort women’ survivors have held demonstrations in front of the Japanese embassy every Wednesday for 13 years, calling for justice and reparations for the unanswered war crimes.
Read the report, Global V-Day Campaign for Justice to 'Comfort Women': Survivors of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery
