Content warning: This article deals with histories of significant sexual violence and trauma.
The mutual animosities between Japan and South Korea remain hostile and unresolved, tied to lingering wounds that have not yet been healed from a century ago. The two nations have a complicated history dating back to 1910 when Japan annexed Korea, turning the Korean peninsula into their colony. During the Japanese occupation period, many Koreans were treated inhumanely by the Japanese colonizers which became a factor of the ongoing hostile relations between the two nations. The most critical dispute rooted in the history of these two nations is the “comfort women” crisis — tens of thousands of women across Asia, most of them Korean, were sent into military brothels to service Japanese soldiers as sex slaves. Ever since the end of the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1945, there have been myriads of approaches to resolve the conflict from both sides. However, due to the conflicting visions of the two countries, they continuously fail to reach an agreement. Where does the bilateral relationship of the two countries stand today and when will they be able to peacefully negotiate this issue?
The term “comfort women” is a euphemism used to represent the 200,000 women and girls who were forced into becoming sex slaves of Japanese soldiers during the Second World War. Japan established brothels called “comfort stations” to “enhance the morale” of Japanese soldiers and ostensibly reduce random sexual assaults. Some Japanese government officials still claim that these women had “volunteered” to “work” in the brothels. However, there exists clear evidence that they were victims of a massive human trafficking scheme— some of the women were lured by false promises of employment, and many of them were simply abducted and sent against their will to comfort stations. Here, they were sexually harassed, assaulted, and tortured brutally when they defied against the soldiers’ demands. Decades later, surviving “comfort women” began testifying their first-hand experiences of their miserable lives in the comfort stations. One of the Korean survivors, Lee Ok-seon shared her experience in 2018 in an interview with Seoul TV.
Lee Ok-seon was only 15 when she was abducted to the station. She testified that a group of uniformed men burst out of a car, attacked her and dragged her into the vehicle. As they drove away, she had no idea that she would never see her parents again. Lee Ok-seon described the comfort station as “slaughterhouse for humans” in her testimony. She added that she had to face approximately 40-50 soldiers every night, and if anyone got a disease, they were executed and had their bodies thrown out into the field.
Although the experiences of the survivors vary, their testimonies share many similarities: repeated rapes that increased before battles, unwanted pregnancies, agonizing physical pain, sexually transmitted diseases and hopeless conditions. Maria Rosa Henson, a Filipina woman who was forced into prostitution in 1943, claimed: “There was no rest, they had sex with me every minute.”
When Japan was defeated in 1945, a study sponsored by the United Nations that was published in 1996 stated that many of the “comfort women” were executed at the end of WWII. Keep in mind that after WWII, documents on the system were destroyed by Japanese officials, so the numbers are only based on estimates by historians that rely on a variety of extant documents. However, even the women who survived had no better life after their experiences in the comfort stations. They suffered physical maladies (including sterility), psychological illnesses, and rejection from their families and communities. Those who were able to return home were labeled as “sluts” or “whores,” leaving them to hide their identities as “comfort women” and live as societal outcasts. As Japan rebuilt after WWII, the story of “comfort women” was downplayed as a distasteful remnant of a past people would rather forget. As of November 2021, there are only 13 survivors left in South Korea and the remaining survivors are desperately calling for a sincere apology and acknowledgement from the Japanese government. Lee Young-soo, an activist and one of the few survivors alive, has previously stated that “I wish time would wait for me, but I know it won’t. I am determined not to die before I resolve this… I need to be alive as much as 200 years to resolve this.”
20 years after the end of Japan’s rule of Korea, in 1965 president Park Chung-hee agreed to normalize relations with the Japanese government in exchange for millions of dollars in loans and grants. From this agreement, Tokyo argues that the 1965 treaty restored diplomatic ties with South Korea and their $800M worth of financial aid had already settled the matter. However, it remains far from resolved. The truth is that the financial aid received by Park Chung-hee in 1965, was not handed to the individual victims but instead, was used by the South Korean government as their national fund. This is partially caused by the corrupt nature of the Korean government under the rule of Park Chung-hee during his time as president. However, what the victims of the crisis truly demand is a sincere act of acknowledgement and a formal apology from the Japanese government, which would restore the victim’s reputations and show their own humanity. From the perspective of Japanese policy elites, the difficulty to reach a negotiation is due to South Korean unwillingness to embrace a future-oriented relationship. For the South Korean policy elites, the problem stems from the unwillingness of the Japanese to sincerely address past wrong-doing; this leads to an intractable mutual misapprehension.
In 1991, during the first testimony of South Korean survivor Kim Hak-sun, the “comfort women” issue slowly began to surface and soon gained global attention. South Korea began to recognize this issue as a pressing matter and formed organizations to fund the survivors and any lawsuits or events related to the crisis. This in turn continuously angered the Japanese elites, as they had already granted an official reparation back in 1965. In December 2015, under the rule of president Park Geun-hye, the daughter of the former president Park Chung-hee, once again signed an irreversible and “final”document of negotiation for “comfort women” with the Japanese government and received about $9.6 million as a compensation fund. This deal irritated many Korean citizens and greatly disappointed the “comfort women” victims, as not at any point of the deal were their opinions or demands met. This was solely a legal and governmental negotiation that did not consider the restoration and reconciliation of the victims. After president Park Geun-hye was impeached, the new government in South Korea, led by President Moon Jae-in, shut down the fund in hopes of appropriately recovering the dignity of the victims, and have been approaching a diplomatic strategy that can rightly recognize the adversities suffered by these survivors. This again enraged the Japanese elites and the diplomatic ties between the two nations have only worsened ever since. South Korea removed Japan from their most-trusted list of trade partners and the Japanese government removed South Korea from a so-called “white list” of trusted countries that benefit from less-stringent trade checks.
From the perspective of South Korean elites, it is the insincere Japanese relentlessly provoking South Korean opinion, leaving the South Korean government to criticize Tokyo. In 2019, Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing brand, published a global campaign advertisement that stirred controversies specifically on the subtitles of the commercial published for South Korea. In the Uniqlo commercial, Iris Apfel, a 97-year-old American style icon with more than 1.4 million Instagram followers, was pictured in an animated conversation with 12-year-old fashion designer Kheris Rogers. When Rogers asks how she used to dress as a teenager, Apfel says: “I can’t remember that far back!” Instead of a literal translation of that line, the commercial that aired in South Korea carried subtitles saying: “Gosh! How can I remember something that goes back 80 years?” Considering that 80 years back from 2019 was 1939, which was the year Japan’s mobilization of South Korea began, it certainly conveyed a source of criticism. Vice versa, the recurring demands for apology and the never-ending cycle of negotiation by changing Korean government parties are drawing the Japanese government back from creating peaceful and secure relations with South Korea.
In this never ending circle of negotiation and dispute, what both governments overlook is the truth that “comfort women” must be viewed and resolved as a human rights issue rather than a political matter. “Comfort women” are the products of a war crime and a clear violation of human rights. Indeed, it is a shameful and degrading history for Japan; by acknowledging their past wrong-doings, the reputation of the nation could deteriorate temporarily, which is what the Japanese government officials are most afraid of. However, what is more deteriorating to their reputation is their denial of the history during their imperial era and the derogatory remarks they have made towards the victims. It is also the South Korean government that handles this issue in favour of the dominating parties of each period that lengthens this process of reconciliation. The newly elected presidents and government view the promises and deals made from the former governments as separate matters of their beliefs. With the “comfort women” issue, the leaders and government elites of South Korea need to act with more caution and responsibility. The demands of victims need to be prioritized instead of the profits of their government. Furthermore, the difficult Japan–South Korea relationship displays the stickiness of reality: so long as Japanese and South Korean policy elites believe that the onus of improvement lies with the neighbour, the lack of self-reflection makes reconciliation difficult, reinforcing the difficult dynamic. They fail to accept the fact that they are reacting in their nationalistic and patriotic populism means to solve the conflict.
Both the Japanese and South Korean policy elites do actively seek reconciliation. But efforts are frequently countered by the disparaging behaviour of “comfort women” by other Japanese politicians, as well as South Korean non-governmental actors pressuring the South Korean government to stand firmly against Japan. Most importantly, both governments overlook the demands of the victims, leading them to not accept the reparations as official and sincere apologies by the Japanese government. Future-oriented relations between the two countries can only be built when history is suitably and openly dealt with and the restoration of humanity in the victims is completed.
Edited by Leslie Carmelotes
Hailey Lee is in her second year at McGill University, currently pursuing a degree in Political Science with a minor in Economics and Communication Studies. As this year’s Staff Writer for Catalyst, Hailey desires to spread awareness and inform the audience on political and human rights issues particularly occurring in the Asia Pacific.