On August 15, 1991, Kim Hak-sun, a woman from South Korea self-proclaimed as a comfortwoman victim in the Japanese military brothel. Since then, the claim made by the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance that the Japanese military forcibly recruited young Korean girls and subjected them to daily sexual abuse as sex slaves, and even murdered them,
has become commonly accepted narrative. Furthermore, on December 14 of 2011, in
commemoration of the 1,000 th Wednesday protest, a statue of “a young girl for peace”, was placed on the sidewalk facing the Japanese consulate, attracting many people to their cause pursuing Japan’s responsibility in war crimes.
Since then, 150 of these girl statues in Korea and more than 30 abroad, have been placed, and the one in the University of Kassel is but one such example. Purportedly, the statue is a reminder of the Japanese military’s forcible recruitments of young girls as sex slaves in the entire Asia Pacific regions during World War ll, and it serves to prevent the recurrence of such war crimes. The problem is however, all the claims made by The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance and the Korea Verband have no factual basis. In the McDougall Report issued in 1998, the war crime was defined as the crimes, including rape and sexual assaults, committed by the enemy forces or occupational forces during the international armed conflict.
Thus, war crimes such as kidnapping, rape and murder of women referred to crimes committed in the conflict zones against the members belonging to enemy forces.
Korea at that time, however, was not under Japanese occupation; it was part of Japan and
women in Korea were Japanese nationals. Forcible recruitment by Japanese military is simply not factual. Moreover, comfort stations were set up in order to prevent rape or violence against women, and they operated legally. Comfort women were required to sign contractual agreement with the owner of the station, then various documents were required in order to obtain business permit as sex workers.
Since clients were mostly Japanese, they adopted Japanese names which they put on their doors. This fact alone should suffice to demonstrate they cannot be compared to Holocaust victims.
Based on the rules and regulations under which comfort stations operated, Japanese military was required to pay set wages at regular intervals. In turn, comfort women were required to split the proceeds with the station operator at the set rate. Some of these women were highly renumerated and bought precious stones such as rubies, jades, diamonds or sent money home to help pay their families’ living expense or school fees for their siblings. Claims made by the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance and the Korea Verband about the victims of wartime sexual violence, sex slavery by Japanese military, and “statue of peace” symbolic of comfort women activism are all false.
The statue is the product of misconception by the sculptor and anti Japan hate. In her art
journal, the sculptor stated that she wanted to memorialize the cruel history of war crimes of sex slavery committed by Japan. They deceived and/or kidnapped young innocent girls likened to young buds, and young women into sexual slavery, and even ended up murdering them without hesitation or remorse. However, this is patently false.
Egregiously, the artist says she used her own 11-year-old daughter as a model to represent the young teens – 13-15 years old – who were deceived or forcibly sent to serve in the battle fields.
However, the laws at that time altogether prohibited young teens from prostitution. Moreover,
the idea that soldiers who were fighting the war both in China and the Pacific would come all the way to Korea to forcibly recruit or deceive young girls into prostitution is so ludicrous that makes no practical sense at all.
In order to work as a military sex worker, a woman had to sign contractual agreement with the brothel owner. She also had to report to the local police station to have the ID issued in order to leave the country. Once landing in the destination, she had to report to the local consulate police station to have her papers checked and cleared in order to receive business permit. Only after this process is completed, she was allowed to work in the comfort station. These strict rules and procedures demonstrate one could not resort to deception, kidnapping, or forcible confinement to recruit sex workers.
Thus, the inscription on the “peace statue” are all forgeries – created by anti Japan forces. The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance calls the statue a symbol of peace, but there is no peace attained by deceits. Deception breeds hatred,
and hatred in turn breeds more conflict and confrontation. It is nothing short of criminal to teach forged history to young impressionable minds.
We urge you to consider whether young people brought up with false history can grow up to build a bright and beautiful future for themselves. There is no future for a people who lie.
Negative and unfortunate history is also history and must be learned. However, they must be based on historical facts.
Comfort women activism by the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance and the Korea Verband have focused all their efforts on distorting comfort women stories, driven by anti Japan hatred. The girl’s statue is a tool for malicious propaganda and human rights violation. I strongly urge the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance and the Korea Verband to stop lying.
I urge people at Kassel University to stop being deceived by lies and sincerely hope you will wake up to the truth of comfort women story. As a Japanese person, I hereby request the University to have the statue of deceit and hatred removed from your campus.
