IT was 30 years ago, on August 14, 1991, when South Korean Kim Hak-sun became the first to give a public testimony about her experience as a comfort woman victim.
In 2012, the South Korean government declared August 14 as the International Memorial Day for Comfort Women.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in described Japan’s wartime use of comfort women as “crimes against humanity.”
About 200,000 women from Korea, China, Burma, New Guinea, and the Philippines were held in captivity and many thousands more were raped as part of one of the largest operations of sexual violence in modern history.
The girls who were abducted, trafficked or brought to the Japanese soldiers’ camps had their own dreams and visions for the future that were shattered a damaged in utter injustice.
Due to their tender age, it was a painful experience for them to be subjected to sexual slavery, rape and other forms of sexual violence during World War 2.
The victims have spent their lives in misery, having endured physical injuries, pain and disability, and mental and emotional suffering.
A year after Hak-sun’s revelation, Lola Rosa Henson decided to come out on September 18, 1992 with her story, and to tell everyone what happened to her, with the hope that such an ordeal will never happen again to any woman.
She was the first Filipina to tell the world about this inhuman practice of the Japanese during the war.
See more at: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/08/17/international-memorial-day-for-comfort-women/