Bonnie B. C. Oh - "Comfort Women of WWII: Past, Present and Future"

Bonnie B.C. Oh, Distinguished Professor of Korean Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

The term, “comfort women,” is a euphemism for “enforced sex slaves”* for the Japanese military during their 15-year war in1931-1945, which overlapped with WWII in Asia. Eighty percent of 200,000 enslaved were Koreans ranging in age from 12 to 25, but they came from all over East Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia, wherever the Japanese military colonized, occupied or stationed.

Since the early 1990s when the aging victims overcame intense social stigma and broke silence, slow but steady progress has been made to honor them in Korea, China, and the United States. But the resurgence of the right-wing groups in Japan and the election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe threaten to undo what little has been accomplished.

This presentation will briefly examine the past of the prostitution system in Japan and its carry-over as military sex slaves in Asia, its recent and present activities in the United States, and what the future holds for the issues related to this topic.

*Used in July 2012 by former Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.