Activists working on Japan’s sexual slavery have noted that the issue is not just a diplomatic matter between Korea and Japan but an issue of human rights in which other countries including the U.S. and other Asian countries should become actively engaged to find a solution.
This conclusion was reached during an online seminar hosted by members of the Harvard Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Wednesday morning (KST), in which a surviving South Korean victim Lee Yong-soo participated as a key note speaker.
The seminar was held after controversy grew over a paper by a professor at Harvard Law School, which claimed that victims of wartime sexual slavery under the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II were “voluntary prostitutes.”
Denouncing the paper of professor J. Mark Ramseyer, the participating experts, politicians and activists said other neighboring countries should also pay attention to the history of the issue.
Mike Honda, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001 to 2017 who helped pass House Resolution 121 promoting the rights of sex slavery victims, called for a U.S. role, saying Washington has also played a role in silencing voices to stop some Japanese right wing groups’ continuous attempts to distort the history of their country’s wartime crimes including the sexual slavery.
Honda noted apologies have been made from the Japanese government in the past, including the Kono Statement released by then-Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993, but the Japan’s conservative ruling Liberal Democratic Party has “silenced the voice of the statement.”
“The U.S. government also played a role in silencing it,” he said. He noted that Washington has refrained from telling the historical truth for fear of weakening relations between Seoul and Tokyo, which are important in maintaining trilateral cooperation among the countries to keep the growing power of Beijing in check. But he said now the U.S. needs to play a role in telling the historical truth for future-oriented relations.
Retired judges Lillian K. Sing and Julie M. Tang, both of whom formerly served on the Superior Court of San Francisco County in California and helped to set up a memorial dedicated to comfort women in San Francisco, also participated in the online seminar as speakers. Sing and Tang, both with Chinese roots, said that the comfort women matter was not an issue between Japan and Korea only but also involved other countries with victims of Japan’s wartime atrocities, including China, where the Nanjing Massacre took place.
Ramseyer’s recent paper “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War” has brought about serious debate in international academia, with many scholars from across the world criticizing the claims he made in his paper as lacking in academic grounding.
During the seminar, the participants criticized the controversial claims made in Ramseyer’s paper, saying they would not tolerate such a distortion of historical truth as they believe the Harvard professor’s claims were made outside the scope of academic freedom, which should be protected.
Lee rather said the paper has become a “wake up call” to spread awareness about the sexual slavery issue around the world. “He made a huge controversy, but a lot of people started to pay attention to the issue thanks to the controversy he brought, so it was like a blessing in disguise.”
