The Japanese military “comfort women” have been a subject of transnational feminism that criticizes the patriarchy of war and talks about peace and a symbol connected to the unfinished issue, sexual violence against women.

Written by Paek Sun-haeng, Team Manager, The Museum of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, an affiliate organization of the Daegu Citizen Forum for Halmuni

Issues raised by the victims of the Japanese military in China - Many people recall the image of an innocent girl who was forcibly taken away by the Japanese military and brutally assaulted. China, at that time a battlefield, was one of the places where such damaging incidents frequently occurred. The Japanese military continuously used brutal violence against Chinese women during the war. They openly took away women to commit sexual abuse across the battlegrounds, occupied areas, as well as urban and rural areas.

In some way or another, testimony literature must provide its own answer to the question of what to represent and how. So what was the answer found by Kim Soom's novel "One Left" (Hyundae Munhak, 2016)?

This achievement of historical research will serve as a basis for listening to testimonies in depth beyond the narrow standard of “fact verification.”

The documentary film , directed by Cecilia Kang, a second-generation Argentine of Korean descent, follows the journey of the protagonist, Melanie Chong, as she confronts and grows increasingly aware of the issue of the Japanese military “Comfort women.”

The author – an ethnomusicologist – invites us to listen to “Comfort Women” survivors’ songs as a way to understand their lives and to remember them.

How can we remember the issue of Japanese military “comfort women”? Talking about an issue involves the processes of embracing it as one's own, facing it, and contemplating on it. In December 2019, a compilation album [Tell the Story - The Third Compilation of Songs] commemorating the Japanese military “comfort women” victims was released with the participation of about 30 musicians.

The first “art teacher” of the “Comfort Women” survivors who live in the House of Sharing. I met and listened to the story of artist Kyung-Shin Lee, the author of “Flowers Unbloomed,” which contains the behind story of the painting class she conducted for five years from 1993.

Written by Son Hee-jung, Yonsei University Institute of Gender Studies