Shahroze Rauf | Assistant News Editor
Featured Image: The Statue of Peace, a bronze statue of a young girl in honour of women forced into sexual slavery during WWII, sits in front of the Japanese Embassy in South Korea. | Courtesy of Flickr
At the young age of 14, Kim Bok-dong was forced into sexual slavery. After being told by Japanese authorities that she was to work in a military clothing factory for three years, the young girl from Yangsan, South Gyeongsang, was instead put to work as a ‘comfort woman’ by the Imperial Japanese Army.
She passed away on January 28, 2019 from cancer in Severance Hospital in South Korea.
Before her incarceration, Bok-dong led a comfortable life of wealth until her family began to struggle. She had to stop her education and experienced the death of her father. Her older sisters left to get married and escape poverty, while she was left at home with her mother and two younger sisters.
“I was born into and raised in a tight-knit family,” Bok-dong said in her last interview. “It was during the time that all young Korean men were conscripted into the Japanese military. Because we were under Japanese rule, they could do whatever they wanted to us.”
This was her life until it drastically changed when she was incarcerated in one of the Japanese military’s many ‘comfort stations.’
“When World War II started, they even pulled the male students out of school to fight as ‘student soldiers’ for Japan. Unfortunately, the boys weren’t the only ones taken away,” she said.
Bok-dong thought herself to be the youngest out of the 30 to 32 girls with her on the way to the encampment, who were all 19 to 20 years old. From ship to ship, the girls waited to arrive at their destination in Guangdong, China.
“I was just too young to realize something was wrong. All I knew was that we still hadn’t arrived at our destination. I had no idea what was coming,” she said.
This scenario is all too familiar to many of the nearly 200,000 Korean women who were incarcerated and forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Given promises of work and better opportunities, these women were illegally forced into sexual labour, and suffered a multitude of adversities.
“Even though we didn’t want to go, they forced us,” said Bok-dong. When asked if she and her mother had refused at the time, Bok-dong answered: “We would’ve lost everything and been exiled from Korea. That’s how they blackmailed us. If the Japanese had confiscated all our possessions, how was our family supposed to live?”
Only recently has there been any dialogue on the matter. In August of 1991, the first woman to come forward and tell her story as a comfort woman was Kim Hak-sun. She demanded Japan take responsibility for the sexual slavery their military enforced on women across Asia by participating in a lawsuit for compensation for the Pacific War victims.
Before all this, however, the issue was unknown. Her story invoked action within Japan, as official documents were revealed causing the Japanese government to launch an inquiry. She also inspired other women to come forward as former comfort women. Chief Cabinet Secretary, Koichi Kato, released an official statement on July 6, 1992, describing the results and what exactly the government at the time had done.
“The Government again would like to express its sincere apology and remorse to all those who have suffered indescribable hardship as so-called ‘wartime comfort women,’ irrespective of their nationality or place of birth. Japan will maintain its stance as a pacifist nation and will endeavour to build up new future-oriented relations with the Republic of Korea and with other countries and regions in Asia.”
In 2015, the Japanese and Korean government came to an agreement on the compensation and reparations required to take responsibilities for the atrocities caused by the comfort station system the Japanese military enforced. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida explains that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expresses his remorse for the adversity all women who were comfort women experienced.
“The issue of comfort women, with an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time, was a grave affront to the honor and dignity of large numbers of women, and the Government of Japan is painfully aware of responsibilities from this perspective,” says Kishida.
Alongside their apology, Japan decided to fund a foundation with a one-time contribution of one billion yen (around $11 million Canadian) that would help living victims.
“To be more specific, it has been decided that the Government of the Republic of Korea (ROK) establish a foundation for the purpose of providing support for the former comfort women that projects for recovering the honor and dignity and healing the psychological wounds of all former comfort women be carried out under the cooperation between the Government of Japan and the Government of the ROK,” says Kishida.
But monetary compensation meant little to Bok-dong. She remembers finally arriving at the comfort station and being greeted by high-ranking Japanese officials.
“They asked me, ‘how old are you?’ When they found I was only 14, they talked among themselves saying, ‘isn’t she too young?’ but told me to go inside where I was greeted by a team of army medics who examined my body,” Bok-dong says.
She then describes the comfort station itself as a large space with many rooms where you could see everything from outside. She remembers her first time, when she was dragged into one of the rooms and beaten until she was raped.
“When the guy finished, I was bleeding badly because it was my first time. The bed sheet was soaked in blood. After they were done, I went back to my dorm upstairs, where I saw two girls crying because they had the same thing done to them.”
The girls then wondered how they could live in such a way, Bok-dong says. From there, the three decided to commit suicide as a way to escape. Bok-dong, with what little money her mother had given to her for food if she was hungry, bought a bottle of Kaoliang wine for the three girls to attempt and end their lives.
But unfortunately, her efforts led to nowhere, and the girls were found. The medics were called, and their stomachs were pumped, causing permanent damage. She woke up ten days later in a daze, realizing she was still alive.
“So, I decided that no matter what, we should live to tell our story. To stay alive, and to go back home, I had no choice but to comply. Because we did what we were told, we weren’t beaten,” she says.
Years later, within the 2015 agreement, Kishida says that with this agreement, the issue of comfort women was settled and would not be brought up again going forward.
“While stating the above, the Government of Japan confirms that this issue is resolved finally and irreversibly with this announcement, on the premise that the Government will steadily implement the measures specified above. Together with the Government of the ROK, the Government of Japan will refrain from accusing or criticizing each other regarding this issue in the international community, including at the United Nations,” says Kishida.
This one-time compensation sparked a debate, as South Korea demanded Japan do more to repair and apologize for the damages done to these women during the war. The South Korean president at the time the accord was made with Japan, Park Geun-Hye, has since been impeached and replaced by President Moon Jae-in.
“Japan’s resistance towards showing a sincere apology may ultimately stem from not wanting to admit to their mistake and be seen in a negative light. They knew they were at fault, yet back- tracked to avoid the consequences. Japan has claimed that these women acted voluntarily and were compensated,” says fourth-year psychology student Tharany Puvaneswaran, who took a course called Understanding Korea through Korean Films.
“Is that what a 14 year-old does to make money?” Bok-dong says after being asked to answer to Japan’s claims that comfort women were paid. “How could I have thought about selling my body at that age? The evidence is all there but they try to hide it. If the Japanese government keeps claiming that it never happened, what am I supposed to say?”
Bok-Dong is a prime example of how much comfort women suffered. Every day was a struggle for her, even when she did not fight against the comfort system, and simply tried to survive.
“They made me have sex with Japanese soldiers everyday. On Saturdays, I’d start from noon till 6 p.m. They stood in lines. If there was a delay, the next guy in line started banging on the door. It was continuous, just one after the other. Even one or two times a day was so difficult for me. But I did it so many times a day I lost count,” she says.
She describes that the days were so intense that she would not be able to properly walk or get up, and her lower body would be in pain. Medics would attend to the comfort women at the end of the day, treating their bodies so that they would be ready for the next day. This was the routine for Bok-dong over the span of eight years.
“I was stationed from Guangdong to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. In Singapore, after Japan lost the war, the Japanese soldiers tried to cover up the existence of these comfort stations by turning us into nurses at the army hospitals,” she says.
And they were able to do so until women began to come forward. Yet, despite all the awareness that was raised on the issue, the 2015 agreement between Japan and South Korea was almost a mockery to the horrors that these comfort women faced.
The issue of the 2015 agreement’s “finally and irreversibly” settlement was discussed by a South Korean government-appointed panel. The panel concluded that President Jae-in should change or even turn over the agreement that was reached between the two countries. The agreement itself received an immense amount of criticism from comfort women victims and citizens in general.
“A victims-centered approach, which has become the international norm when it comes to the wartime women’s rights, has not been sufficiently reflected, and the deal was reached through give-and-take negotiations as in an ordinary diplomatic issue,” the panel stated. “The agreement was finalized mostly based on government views without adequately taking into account the opinions of victims.”
However, the South Korean government decided on January 9, 2018, that they would not be demanding renegotiations from Japan.
“It cannot be denied that the 2015 deal was an official agreement reached between the governments of each country,” says South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha. “And our government will not demand renegotiation.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also refused to provide more compensation that was sought through the controversy and South Korea’s disagreement with the pre-existing 2015 accord. When President Moon previously demanded further apology and compensation, Prime Minister Abe was already refusing to do anything outside the 2015 agreement.
“We can, by no means, accept South Korea’s unilateral request for additional measures,” Abe said.
Abe told reporters three days after South Korea’s official announcement to not demand renegotiations: “The Japan South Korea deal was a promise between countries. It is an international and universal principle to keep it.”
“I want a formal apology,” says Bok-dong. “They should say ‘what we did was completely wrong, and we’ll correct our history textbooks.’ And say to us, ‘we sincerely apologize.’ If they wrote that kind of formal apology, then we can forgive them. This is not about the money. They keep trying to make this issue go away and we’re constantly fighting so that it doesn’t happen. It’s history!”
After campaigning relentlessly for awareness on the issue, Bok-dong passed away from cancer at the age of 92. But she never stopped demanding reparations from Japan.
“The last audible word she uttered before she died was actually a swear word that expressed her strong anger at the Japanese government,” says Yoon Mi-hyang, president of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance.
Before her condition worsened, and after coming out as a former comfort woman, Bok-dong travelled around the world to talk about her experiences. She attended rallies in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul that demanded a proper apology from Japan. Alongside another former comfort woman, Gil Won-ok, she founded the Butterfly Fund in 2012 to help women who were victims of wartime sexual violence.
But unfortunately, in the end, Bok-dong felt that she was not able to do enough to resolve the issues that her and 200,000 other women experienced.
“I was angry and bitter whenever I thought about it. And I thought things could get resolved if I just told the truth. But it still hasn’t been resolved to this day.”
She had plans to give other students the chance to study with the money she would have received from the Japanese government—a chance she regretted not having. But as the issue remained unresolved, Bok-dong slowly lost hope.
“Had I known this issue would drag out for so long, I wouldn’t have come forward. If no one knew, then I could’ve just lived quietly. At the age of 14, when I should’ve been studying, I was taken away. If I ever got money from the Japanese government, with that money, I was going to pay for the education of the students who can’t afford to do so. That was my plan. But I’m 92 now. There is no resolution in sight.”
She lived the last years of her life in pain and regret for her past. The psychological strains of her traumatic childhood alongside the attempt of authorities to hide and invalidate what had been done to her left Bok-dong with a sadness that became exhausting.
“You might be hearing this for the first time. But for me, it’s so painful to talk about. At this age, when I should be at peace, the Japanese government keeps dragging out this issue. So, whenever I have to talk about this over and over, I’m heartbroken beyond relief.”
