CONTEXT & HISTORY

Comfort Women

   The term comfort women refers to the roughly 200,000 women and girls who were abducted from their homes and forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese military during the second World War (Lee 2018, 1). These "comfort women" were from Korea, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Thailand, East Timor, Papa New Guinea, French Indochina, Japan, the Netherlands, and Australia. They endured extreme sexual, physical, and mental trauma, being detained in comfort stations and raped up to 10 to 50 times a day for multiple years. Around seventy-five percent are estimated to have died during these years, suffering pain from sexually transmitted diseases, aggressive treatment, physical abuse, torture, forced sterilization and abortion, and threats of death (Brouwer 2005).​​

After the war, those who survived were forced to continue their lives enduring the physical and psychological wounds and social stigma caused by the ordeal. The issue was forced down and tabooed in the post-war decades, until 1991 when a Korean survivor came forward publicly, demanding reparations and a formal apology from the Japanese government. This led hundreds of other women to come forward, and survivor testimonies revealed the details of the cruelties inflicted upon the women. 

   Following the bravery of survivors in sharing their stories, various memorials have been erected around the world - in Korea, the United States, Italy, and the Philippines. These statues typically feature statues of young girls, the most common being a sitting young girl next to an empty chair, representing those who did not survive to see an apology from Japan. These were erected for the purpose of not just remembrance, but also to demand an official apology and legal reparations from the Japanese government, following decades of denial and inadequate acknowledgement of the victims' continued suffering.

   There are, of course, various controversies surrounding the statues, often referred to as Statues of Peace. For instance, continued denial and pressure from the Japanese government regarding the removal of the statues. Far-right communities in Japan (such as Nadesiko-Action), as well, perpetuate heavy denial towards the suffering of the comfort women, believing no monuments should be erected. City councils and organizations have been actively pressured by various groups to block or delay statue installations, predominantly utilizing diplomatic pressure, lobbying, public protests, vandalism, and threats of withdrawing investments in order to silence the stories of these women. In Sardinia, for instance, the Japanese government attempted to block the installation of the statue by mobilizing its ambassador to Italy. The mayor, Rita Vallebella, reportedly said that the inscription promoted a one-sided claim, and that the wording may need to be changed.

   We believe it is of the utmost importance to protect these statues, expanding them in our redesign so as to preserve the memory and testimony of survivors. By doing this, we can work to prevent historical denial, create a visualization of survivor testimony, form a solidified collective memory, as well as reconstruct the silenced existence of these women, restoring them as women with identity and agency.