Comfort women speak : testimony by sex slaves of the Japanese military : includes new United Nations human rights report

Resource Information

The work Comfort women speak : testimony by sex slaves of the Japanese military : includes new United Nations human rights report represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Comfort women speak : testimony by sex slaves of the Japanese military : includes new United Nations human rights report

Title remainder

testimony by sex slaves of the Japanese military : includes new United Nations human rights report

Statement of responsibility

edited by Sangmie Choi Schellstede ; featuring photographs by Soon Mi Yu

Contributor

• Schellstede, Sangmie Choi
• Yu, Soon Mi

Subject

• Comfort women -- Asia
• Comfort women -- Korea
• Personal narratives -- Korean
• Service, Compulsory non-military -- Asia
• World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities -- Asia
• World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Korean

Genre

• Personal narratives
• Personal narratives, Korean

Language

• eng
• kor
• eng

Summary

"During World War II, an estimated 200,000 girls and young women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese imperial military, which was authorized by the highest levels of Japan's wartime government. This system resulted in the largest, most methodical and most deadly mass rape of women in recorded history. Japan's Kem pei tai political police and their collaborators tricked or abducted females as young as eleven years old and imprisoned them in military rape camps known as "comfort stations," situated throughout Asia. These "comfort women" were forced to service as many as fifty Japanese soldiers a day. They were often beaten, starved, and made to endure abortions or injections with sterilizing drugs. Only a few of the women survived, and those that did suffered permanent physical and emotional damage. Little was known about the true scope of this crime against humanity until 1991, when after almost fifty years of silence, seventy-four-old Kim Hak-soon bravely told the world of her experiences as a comfort woman. Her testimony gave others the strength to tell their stories. The Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues (WCCW) carefully transcribed and translated the stories of nineteen survivors, which are now presented in this book. These courageous women have shared their experiences to document a crime that must never be repeated. They seek a formal apology and reparation from Japan's government for the horrors it imposed on them. Thus far, that government has responded with gestures that many survivors regard as a new and more subtle form of the same degradation they have faced throughout their lives. This is not simply a history book. Comfort Women Speak documents the lives of nineteen courageous women who continue to fight to bring to account one of the most powerful governments in the world."--BOOK JACKET

Member of

• Science and human rights series

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

940.54/05/0922519

Illustrations

• illustrations
• portraits

Index

no index present

Language note

Includes translation of Korean testimonies into English

LC call number

D810.C698

LC item number

C66 2000

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

Holmes & Meier science and human rights