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Bitter Revelations

Former comfort woman Soon Duk Kim speaks into a megaphone at last Wednesday’s rally in front of the San Francisco Japanese consulate, telling crowds of protesters her story of how she was used as a sex slave during World War II. Photo by Joseph Hong.

After decades of silence, former ‘comfort women’ demand apology, reparations

By Joseph Hong

At age 17, Soon Duk Kim was taken from her native Korea and sent to China to become a “comfort woman” — the euphemism coined by the Japanese Army during World War II for the estimated 200,000 young women, mostly Koreans, but also Chinese and Filipinos, enslaved for the purpose of providing sex to Japanese soldiers in military brothels in Northeast and Southeast Asia during the 1930s and early ’40s.

One of the many signs held aloft during the emotional rally. Photo by Joseph Hong.

Last Wednesday, in front of the downtown Japanese consulate in San Francisco, Kim now age 80, was joined by approximately 40 demonstrators, including civil rights organizers, a Buddhist monk, and several Korean drummers in a loud and emotional rally calling on the Japanese government to apologize officially and pay restitution.

The protesters marched in the streets chanting “Reveal the truth” and held up colorful posters with some reading “Japan Raped Our Grandmas.” Korean drummers pounded and danced as members of the Japanese consulate watched with curious onlookers.

The elderly Kim marched and chanted for an hour. At one point during the rally, she took the megaphone and began relaying her story to the crowd in her native Korean, but had to stop because she became too tired.

During a later interview, Kim talked about how, at the age of 17, she along with other unsuspecting women were manipulated, captured and brought to government sanctioned military brothels in Asia.

As a teenager, Kim knew that Korean women were being mobilized to help with the war efforts during the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1937. She and about 50 women were led to sign papers, which they believed were contracts to become factory workers in Japan. They were loaded on a ship. But when the women disembarked, they saw and smelled the rotting corpses of Chinese civilians. They soon realized they were not in Japan, but near occupied Shanghai, China.

Kim and the others were then taken to a so-called “comfort station” where long lines of soldiers waited their turn to have sex with the women in small rooms. For the next three years Kim and others were forced to have sex with up to 30 soldiers a day. Kim’s story resembles those of other women in her generation living in Asia, and those now living in the United States, who have come forward only in the last decade to demand an official apology and restitution from the Japanese government.

“I never knew about this till now and I’m a quarter Japanese … I’m just appalled,” said Jeff Tacorda while watching the rally.

The protesters ranged in all ages, from octogenarians to a group of high school students who skipped class to attend the rally. “We need public knowledge and general awareness of this issue …” protester Ann Menzi, 56, said. “Life has been taken away from them. They are old now and we can’t let this issue die away with them.”

Another protester, Japanese American and civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama, who over 30 years ago held the assassinated Malcom X in her arms as he lay dying, took the megaphone and declared to the crowd: “We must all unite and assert our outrage at Japan’s human rights violation and in whatever way possible fight against such war time atrocities so that it may never happen again.”

Bay Area organizer Helen Kim shouts out demands for justice. Photo by Joseph Hong

A contingent of four protesters: Kim, two Bay Area organizers, and a Buddhist monk simply known as “Hyejin,” met with the Japanese deputy consulate general, Takahito Narumiya, in a closed door meeting after the rally. The organizers said they presented the Japanese official with approximately 100 signatures, signed that day, demanding the Japanese government officially address the comfort women issue.

In a phone interview, Narumiya said he is personally sorry for what had happened to the women but insisted the Japanese government had already apologized in 1995, adding, “all claims concerning damages in World War II have been settled in 1951.” The official declined to comment further due to pending lawsuits filed in Washington, D.C. ,against the Japanese government by former comfort women living in the United States.

ýrotest organizers, however, say that for years the Japanese government “has destroyed or hidden official documents on the military comfort women system,” and it wasn’t until 1993 that the government even acknowledged the existence of “comfort women,” after testimonies of former victims were made public in 1991.

Kim was one of the lucky ones. After three years in China, she was sent home in 1940 after she begged a Japanese officer to take pity on her since she was suffering from an illness. Comfort women usually “mysteriously disappeared” when they became pregnant or ill with venereal disease. Many others, during the retreat of the defeated Japanese military, were rounded up and killed, according to testimonies in 1991 by Kim and other former comfort women. Still more, scarred from the emotional and physical abuse, committed suicide.

For decades Kim hid her wartime past because of shame. Many, including Kim, did not go back to their homes after the war because they could not face their families. Because of venereal disease many became sterile and suffer from physical ailments such as endometriosis, fallopian tube disorder and bladder infections.

In 1992 Kim found some relief after “a difficult and lonely life” working as a housekeeper and running a succession of small businesses. She moved into the House of Sharing, started by Hyejin, where former comfort women live and seek peace in each others’ shared experience.

After 60 years of silence, Kim eventually found the courage to testify about had happened to her. Through a translator, she said, “We must all be really conscious of this issue … We must take ownership of it so this issue can be resolved and that it may never again happen to anyone.”