A triumph of humanity--former military sexual slave, Kim Bog-dong's life!
김복동 할머님께서 별세(別世)하셨다는 슬픈 소식을 전해 드립니다.
할머님의 삶은 거의 1세기전, 나라를 잃은 우리 할머님, 우리 어머님, 우리 한민족 여성의 역사이기도 합니다.
할머님께서 보여 주신 그 용기 영원히 기억하고 반드시 성노예 없는 세상, 주권, 독립 국가를 만드는 역사적 사명을 완수할 것을 다짐해 봅니다.
미국에선 재미교포들, 미국 시민단체들이 할머님의 삶을 기립니다.
1월 29일 오전 11시 부터 2월 1일 아침까지 연세대학 세브란스 병원에서 조문(弔問)이 가능합니다.
Dear Friend,
It is with great sadness that we learned of Kim Bog-dong's passing.
Another comfort woman victim dies.
Kim Bok-dong, a victim of Japan's wartime sexual enslavement, is seen in this Oct. 3, 2018, photo taken during a weekly rally at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to demand Tokyo's apology. Kim died on the night of Jan. 28, 2019, after a bout with cancer. Kim, born in 1926, was forcibly taken by Japan as a sex slave, known as "comfort women," to serve its soldiers during World War II. She has been an outspoken witness to the atrocities suffered by people like her, testifying at hearings and conferences overseas. Now only 23 comfort women victims remain. (Yonhap)
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/PYH20190129010200320?section=image/general
Viewing:1/29 - 2/1: Superior Hall 1, The Severance Hospital of the Yeonsei University (Seoul, South Korea)
"Please apologize to the victims and then resolve the comfort women issues...And then I will fly like a butterfly." Kim Bog-dong to the Japanese government
“These women were exploited, they were enslaved, all this is cruelty. I thought of all this, and of the dignity that they have and also how much they suffered.” Pope Francis
Dear Friend--a very sad news.
"Grandma" Kim Bog-dong (93)--one of only 24 remaining Korean survivors of “comfort women”--is dying of terminal cancer. She is expected to live only a few more months.
Kim was one of 200,000 “comfort women” (mostly girls) who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military when Korea was under the brutal Japanese colonization (1910-1945). Instead of remaining as a helpless victim, for more than 30 years, Kim has fought for human dignity and women’s and girls’ rights by leading the world’s longest protest (a weekly Wednesday protest for 26 years). Even in her hospital bed now, Kim is contributing to the making of a documentary about Japan's crime against humanity, military sexual slavery and violence against girls and women.
We need her more than she needs us.
This world needs her dignity, grace and courage.
Please pray for “Grandma” Kim Bog-dong and honor her life!
References from previous updates on "A World Without Military Sexual Slavery"
1.CNN. Comfort woman’s horrific experience
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/04/29/pkg-ripley-japan-comfort-woman.cnn
2.Former sex slave says she still feels impact of meeting with pope. Catholic News Service
In an interview with Catholic News Service, Kim Bok-dong, 88, said through an interpreter she told Pope Francis she wished for "a world without war." And then she asked him to urge the Japanese government, "'Please apologize to the victims and then resolve the comfort women issues.'"
"And then I will fly like a butterfly," said Kim, who now lives in a women's shelter in Seoul. Kim was among seven "comfort women" who had a private audience with Pope Francis before his final Mass during his last day in South Korea Aug. 18. The women were forced into prostitution by the Japanese in the years leading up to World War II and also throughout the war. She gave Pope Francis a gold-colored metal butterfly pin, and he promptly pinned it above his left breast and kept it there throughout the Mass. The pin is a symbol of the women's call for justice.
http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2014/former-sex-slave-says-she-still-feels-impact-of-meeting-with-pope.cfm
3.“Pope Francis Gave Me a Butterfly Badge.. Everything Will Be All Right.”
[Pope] Francis greeted each of the seven women, most in wheelchairs, at the front of Seoul’s main cathedral Monday at the start of his final Mass for peace and reconciliation on the Korean peninsula.
https://justiceforcomfortwomen.org/tag/pope-francis/
4.South Korea’s surviving `comfort women’ spend final years seeking atonement from Japan. Reuters.
When 17-year-old Lee Yong-soo returned home to South Korea in 1945 after years as a child sex slave for Japanese troops, her family, having given her up for dead, thought she was a ghost….“The survivors of the heinous crimes the Japanese committed are dying day by day, and I bet Abe is dancing for joy,” Lee said, becoming animated as she described her frustration. “They should apologize, tell the truth, and pay the legal compensation.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-japan-comfortwomen/south-koreas-surviving-comfort-women-spend-final-years-seeking-atonement-from-japan-idUSKCN1NS024
5.The New York Times. Girls in Japan’s War Brothels. Dr. MARGARET D. STETZ
To the Editor:
“Apology, if Not Closure, for ‘Comfort Women’ ” (front page, Dec. 29) describes an agreement meant to settle the dispute over the “Korean women” who were “lured or coerced to work in brothels” for Japanese soldiers during World War II. As survivors have testified, many targets of this brutal system of sexual slavery were not “women,” but girls of 13 or 14. Many had not even begun menstruating when they were shipped as human cargo to battlefronts across Asia and subjected to daily rape. These were not only war crimes, but crimes of child sex trafficking. Until they are represented as such in textbooks in Japan — and in news articles in the West — there is no true justice for these victims. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/01/opinion/girls-in-japans-war-brothels.html?_r=0
6.Comfort Women: Former World War Two sex slaves demand Japan admits legal responsibility.
Gil Won-ok, 89, now lives at Woorijip, a comfort women survivors' shelter in Yeonnam-dong in Seoul. In 1937, Gil was drafted against her will as a military sex slave at the age of 13 in Japanese-occupied Korea . She caught syphilis and developed tumours. A Japanese military doctor removed her uterus, leaving her unable to have children. Kim Bok-dong, 91, also a resident at Woorijip, was taken in 1941 when she was 15. She described how a Japanese police officer and soldiers arrived at her rural home, and demanded she come with them to work at a garment factory. "My mother protested: 'She is so little, what can she do?' But they said I could learn, so it should be all right, which is how I ended up going, thinking it'd be just for a few days." Kim was held at military brothels in southern China, Indonesia and Singapore and was gone for seven years.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/comfort-women-former-world-war-two-sex-slaves-demand-japan-admits-legal-responsibility-1576090
7.The World Post. Japanese Citizens go on March to Remember Late Korean Comfort Woman
The Nationwide Action to Resolve Comfort Women Issue, a Japanese civic group that jointly organized the event, issued a joint statement with 107 organizations nationwide, and criticized, “Who would believe the Japanese government if its only concern is demolishing Statue of Peace (also known as Comfort Woman Status) while shifting the responsibility to other government.” It also warned to the Korean government, stating, “If the Korean government sets up Reconciliation and Healing Foundation and propel the ‘final and irrevocable’ resolution compulsorily, it will leave irreparable source of trouble in the history.”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/asiatoday/japanese-citizens-go-on-m_b_11543704.html
8.CNN. S. J. Friedman. Why `comfort women’ deal doesn’t shut book on Japan’s wartime sex slavery
The leading scholar in China on comfort women, Su Zhiliang, of Shanghai Normal University, told me the number of victims may be much higher -- 400,000 -- with 200,000 Chinese women forced to work as unpaid prostitutes. http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/30/opinions/japan-korea-china-comfort-women/
9.Asia Pacific Forum. Comfort Women Still Refuse to Compromise
Amid the global panic over North Korea’s suspected nuclear developments, one issue that’s lurking in the background is the legacy of World War II and the nationalistic tensions still overhanging Asia’s geopolitics. In the backdrop is the issue of the comfort women, the Korean victims of military sexual slavery who are still seeking justice 70 years later. Recently the governments of Japan and South Korea tried to put the issue to rest with a backdoor deal, but the survivor community is outraged at what they see as a deeply inadequate compensation plan intended to silence them. Simone Chun of the Korea Policy Institute discusses how the still unresolved struggles of South Korea’s comfort women play into the Pacific Rim’s politics today. https://player.fm/series/asia-pacific-forum/comfort-women-still-refuse-to-compromise-asia-pacific-forum-11-apr-2016
10.CNN. S.J. Friedman. Why comfort women deal doesn’t shut book on Japan’s wartimes sex slavery
The leading scholar in China on comfort women, Su Zhiliang, of Shanghai Normal University, told me the number of victims may be much higher -- 400,000 -- with 200,000 Chinese women forced to work as unpaid prostitutes. http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/30/opinions/japan-korea-china-comfort-women/
11.Interview: SJ Friedman - Silenced No More: Voices of Comfort Women
You note that the US has not done enough to bring justice to former sex slaves. To what do you attribute this?
Several human rights lawyers and experts told me it boils down to racism. I’ll have to agree. Asian victims of military sex slavery were treated with tragic indifference compared to the small group of Dutch female victims, who were prisoners-of-war in Indonesia [former Dutch colony] that had their perpetrators brought to trial in Batavia after WWII and were convicted. Plus, Japan and the US have enjoyed a long friendly relationship as Japan was propped up almost immediately as a bulwark against communism in east Asia post-WWII.
As you note, Germany has apologised for its crimes against Jewish people, but Japan has failed to acknowledge its crimes regarding comfort women and other war crimes. Why do you think this is?
While writing the book in Vancouver, I often gazed at the black and white photo of Willy Brandt kneeling at the Holocaust memorial. It was so heartfelt. I was mesmerized by it. His genuine apology pierced the hearts of not only the survivors of the Holocaust but also their children. A moving apology that touches the hearts of comfort women survivors will also heal the next generation and heal nations still mired in generations of hatred for the Japanese.
http://www.timeout.com.hk/books/features/74009/interview-sj-friedman-silenced-no-more-voices-of-comfort-women.html
12.Bloomberg View. Noah Feldman. Apology Isn’t Justice for Korea’s `Comfort Women’
But morally speaking, crimes against humanity aren’t the same as car accidents. Those who enslaved women during World War II weren’t being negligent; they raped and dehumanized these women in particular, and the status and fundamental rights of women everywhere.
Promising a form of silence about such crimes in exchange for an apology and compensation seems inadequate to the scope and meaning of the wrongdoing. During negotiations, Japan also sought the removal of a memorial statue in front of its embassy in Seoul. South Korea’s government promised to take up the issue with the survivors – implying a good-faith effort to make the memorial disappear. Crimes against humanity are the world’s business. They shouldn’t be forgotten, and discussing as well as memorializing them shouldn’t be suppressed or discouraged. The interest in keeping the memory of such crimes alive also extends to the victims themselves. Of course they’re entitled to compensation. But it feels wrong if they can only get it because their government has agreed to drop their case and, to a degree, is encouraging them to drop their efforts to shame the perpetrators.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-12-28/how-korea-s-deal-with-japan-fails-comfort-women-
13.United Nations. Economic and Social Council. Commission on Human Rights
Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1994/45 Report on the mission to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea and Japan on the issue of military sexual slavery in wartime… In the first instance, it was argued that the forcible recruitment of 200,000 Korean women as military sexual slaves, their severe sexual assault and the killing of most of them in the aftermath should be considered a crime against humanity. Furthermore, as the annexation of the Korean peninsula by Japan is considered not to have been attained through legal means 12/ and the Japanese presence on the Korean peninsula is considered to have constituted a state of military occupation, the forcible recruitment of Korean women as "comfort women" should also be considered a crime under international humanitarian law, since these crimes were committed against civilians in an occupied area. Secondly, it was contended that the establishment of a "comfort women" scheme, and in particular the forcible recruitment and coercion into prostitution, is contrary to the 1921 International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, which Japan had ratified in 1925.
http://www.awf.or.jp/pdf/h0004.pdf
14.Counterpunch. K.J.Noh. South Korea’s Betrayal of the “Comfort Women”
Japan... upgraded its military agreements with the US to allow it offensive capacity anywhere in the world….Abe subscribes to ultra-right, nationalist, militarist ideologies that dream of Imperial restoration, with a 500 million dollar budget for white-washing its history, and politicians and diplomats rushing forth to badger and intimidate anyone who challenges Japanese dreams of imperial glory past, present, or future.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/31/south-koreas-betrayal-of-the-comfort-women/
15.KPI Fellow Simone Chun On Asia Pacific Forum: On Military Sexual Slavery Issue. Japan’s military “comfort system” was a violation of international law and a crime against humanity
http://kpolicy.org/kpi-fellow-simone-chun-on-asia-pacific-forum-on-military-sexual-slavery-issue/
http://homepy.korean.net/~jnctv/www/news/politic/read.htm?bn=politic&board_no=661
16.Zoom in Korea. Veterans For Peace Stand in Solidarity with Comfort Women Survivors. “Justice for Survivors of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCfVgvI8DFI
*다음은 김복동 할머니가 별세하시기 전에 올린 내용입니다.
김복동 할머님께서 암으로 시한부 선고를 받으시고 너무나 고통스런 투병을 하신다는 소식입니다.
고통속에서도 소녀들과 여성들을 위해 마지막 다큐를 만들고 계신답니다.
전쟁 없는 세상이 소원이라고 하십니다.
꼭 명심할 겁니다.
93세 할머님의 삶, 식민지, 전쟁, 분단도 우리들의 가족 역사입니다.
소녀들, 여성의 존엄성을 위해 26년이란 세계 역사상 최장기 수요일 시위를 이끈 용기도 이제 우리들 가족 역사입니다.
우리 아이들에게, 특히, 소녀들에게 할머님의 용기와 정신을 꼭 이야기 해 줍시다.
할머님의 용기가 너무나 절실한 오늘 이시대,
김복동 할머님을 위해 기도해 주십시요.
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