TLOZ Link5
November 5th, 2004, 04:04 PM
I really hope this isn't construed as some advertisement. But then again, you guys know me, so why should I worry?
The small theater group Urban Stages is currently showing a play that deals with the abuse of women sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. Called Comfort Women after the euphamistic title that these women were given by their Japanese overseers, it tells the story of a Korean-American NYU student, her grandmother, and two former comfort women whom the granddaughter met during the 1994 UN protests.
From 1932 to 1945, the Japanese Imperial Army kidnapped, coerced, kidnapped and tricked over 200,000 young women and girls, the overwhelming majority of them Korean, into becoming unwilling prostitutes for Japanese soldiers. The program was stepped up in 1938 after the sexual atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during the Rape of Nanking; it wa believed that having women around to relieve their tension, so to speak, would improve morale and prevent such brutal acts being committed against women in occupied territories. A network of "comfort stations" was set up throughout Japanese-occupied territories, run by the Japanese Army.
It was common for most of the comfort women to service upwards of thirty men a day; if they resisted, they might be beaten, tortured, or killed. Though condoms were provided (and recycled), venereal disease and syphilis claimed many victims, while many women became infertile from the constant rapine. Others killed themselves out of despair and shame. If and when the surviving women returned home, they were viewed with derision as prostitutes and dishonorable to their families.
Such wounds never heal. The former comfort women who survive today are in constant pain from their ordeal. Few of the survivors ever spoke to anyone about what happened to them, due to the Asian cultural climate that looks down on prostitution, even if it were forced. The Japanese government destroyed all records of the system. It was not until 1988 that some Korean scholars began to study the comfort women in earnest, and not until 1991 that the first woman broke the silence.
Today, there are 120 known comfort women in South Korea, 150 in North Korea, and dozens more in China, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia. They are constantly at work bringing to light one of the biggest, most atrocious sex trades in world history, lobbying the Japanese government and the UN for a formal apology, a memorial to the women, reparations for the women or their families, and acknowledgement of the comfort women in Japanese historical education. The play that Urban Stages is now showing is a testimony to the barbarity of the comfort system, a story that must be told as more of these women, whether they have come forward or not, leave us forever with each passing year.
http://urbanstages.org/
The small theater group Urban Stages is currently showing a play that deals with the abuse of women sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. Called Comfort Women after the euphamistic title that these women were given by their Japanese overseers, it tells the story of a Korean-American NYU student, her grandmother, and two former comfort women whom the granddaughter met during the 1994 UN protests.
From 1932 to 1945, the Japanese Imperial Army kidnapped, coerced, kidnapped and tricked over 200,000 young women and girls, the overwhelming majority of them Korean, into becoming unwilling prostitutes for Japanese soldiers. The program was stepped up in 1938 after the sexual atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during the Rape of Nanking; it wa believed that having women around to relieve their tension, so to speak, would improve morale and prevent such brutal acts being committed against women in occupied territories. A network of "comfort stations" was set up throughout Japanese-occupied territories, run by the Japanese Army.
It was common for most of the comfort women to service upwards of thirty men a day; if they resisted, they might be beaten, tortured, or killed. Though condoms were provided (and recycled), venereal disease and syphilis claimed many victims, while many women became infertile from the constant rapine. Others killed themselves out of despair and shame. If and when the surviving women returned home, they were viewed with derision as prostitutes and dishonorable to their families.
Such wounds never heal. The former comfort women who survive today are in constant pain from their ordeal. Few of the survivors ever spoke to anyone about what happened to them, due to the Asian cultural climate that looks down on prostitution, even if it were forced. The Japanese government destroyed all records of the system. It was not until 1988 that some Korean scholars began to study the comfort women in earnest, and not until 1991 that the first woman broke the silence.
Today, there are 120 known comfort women in South Korea, 150 in North Korea, and dozens more in China, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia. They are constantly at work bringing to light one of the biggest, most atrocious sex trades in world history, lobbying the Japanese government and the UN for a formal apology, a memorial to the women, reparations for the women or their families, and acknowledgement of the comfort women in Japanese historical education. The play that Urban Stages is now showing is a testimony to the barbarity of the comfort system, a story that must be told as more of these women, whether they have come forward or not, leave us forever with each passing year.
http://urbanstages.org/