Justice for Comfort Women!

Together with "Comfort Women," around the world!

We, concerned citizens around the world, denounce the recent "final and irreversible" deal on Dec.28, 2015 between Seoul and Tokyo over Japanese wartime sex slavery.

*Why this deal should be null and void?

70 years after the World War II, Korea's so-called “comfort women” finally got an apology from Japan for being forced into militarized sexual slavery. But the apology and the compensation ($ 8.3 million) come with precondition: It requires South Korea to forever drop the issue, and to remove a memorial statue of a girl symbolizing comfort women's suffering. Japan didn't admit any legal responsibility and offers no formal reparations. Before the South Korean government agreed to these terms, it made no effort to consult with the victims.

Promising silence in exchange for an apology & compensation is unjust. It's memory should be preserved, and discussing & memorializing it shouldn’t be suppressed as a stimulus to keep them from happening again. Germany, for example, never requested any countries to stop discussing Holocaust.

*What the victims and supporters want?

We demand both governments make a new negotiation that includes the victims' wish, which requests Japan to end any efforts to remove, or request the removal of references to the "comfort women" in Japanese and foreign textbooks, newspapers, and other official documents. Japanese government should educate future generations about this atrocity, as we all know history can repeat itself for those who never learned a lesson.

*Why should we care?
About 200,000 teenagers throughout Asia were subject to daily rape (reportedly, up to 50 times), routine beating, forced drug injection, partial body removal, and some were even killed as a way to remove evidence.

A crime against humanity is the world’s business. Today, there are only 40 "comfort women" survivors in South Korea alone, well into their 80s and 90s. Nine victims have passed away last year. Therefore, we need to resolve this issue in a timely manner. We can not close the history book on the women's darkest chapter like this. Please join us in our quest to true justice for all the victims of sexual enslavement.