クメールルージュ時代の女性に対する暴力について、ラジオで1時間ほど話してくれという依頼。
以前、国連のドキュメンタリーでインタビューされてたのをすっかり忘れたままその映画の試写会に行って、自分がスクリーンに映って話してるのを見て超はずかしかったわたし。子どもが生まれたばかりだったのと役所の仕事に忙殺されていた時期だったので、事前にもらってた質問事項に目を通さずにジャーナリストのインタビューを受けて、なんともちんぷんかんな回答をして恥をかいたのだ(映画ではちゃんとまともに編集されてたけれど・・・・・)
![](https://blogimg.goo.ne.jp/user_image/2e/b9/e172d0da6a58eb58a59e540c81187ba0.jpg)
そのLesson learned から、今回はちゃんと事前に質問事項をもらって、回答をクメール語で準備して、恥をかかないようにすることに。質問事項は以下の5つ。
1.なぜ若者たちにクメールルジュ時代の女性に対する暴力を教えるのか?
2.若者はクメールルジュ時代の女性に対する暴力に関心があるか?
3.ジェンダー問題とクメールルージュをどうやってリンクさせて教えているのか?
4.若者たちが女性に対する暴力をふるわないように、どうやって働きかけているのか?
5.過去のクメールルージュ問題と、現在の女性に対する暴力をどうやって関係づけているのか?
以下は、英語でざくっと作ってみた、質問1に対する回答。結局、この回答は、視聴者からの電話の質問に回答する形で、すっごく簡素化されて回答することになった。
1. Why are you interested in educating GBV during KR to the youth?
It is my passion to work for ending violence against women. I believe violence against women can be prevented and stopped. The question is how. One of the approaches is to take the opportunity in the process of transitional justice, by linking past experience of violence to reduce and eliminate violence in current society.
Every single country has gone through a number of conflicts in its history. Some countries are still fighting for justice and peace in present times. I am from Japan, which also went through quite a large number of wars internally and also against neighboring countries. In last century, only 60 years ago, Japan occupied Asian countries, including Cambodia during the World War 2. We learned great deal about our war heroes in the military who were models for leadership.
On the contrary, the atrocities of the Japanese military in occupied land were not taught in school because of its sensitivity. One of those hidden aspect of our history is “Comfort women” issue, which is still controversial matter in Japan. “Comfort women” is a systematic sexual slavery system of the Japanese military. Huge number of women from China, Korea and other parts in Asia were kidnapped, abducted, and forced into the sexual slavery for the comfort of Japanese military personnel. Asian women were forced to have sex with sometimes more than 20 soldiers in one day and often times they were paid nothing. Those young women were deprived of freedom and their fundamental rights were violated.
This terrible women’s rights violation was never taught in school when I was a student in junior high school and high school. We learned nothing about it and we did not know anything about sufferings of those Asian women. It was only when I was in university, a number of former “comfort woman” from Korea and China started to disclose their stories of sufferings from the Japanese military regime.
Their stories were unbelievable in the beginning, and unacceptable to many Japanese. It was simply because it was difficult to accept the fact that our fathers or grandfathers were abusing and violating women in Asia during the war. We were educated that Japanese military personnel were fighting against the imperialism for peace and security of Asia, and they were disciplined and sexual violence is surely understood as a taboo. My grandfather was also in Manchuria, which is now in China, and worked for the Mantetsu, a train company, for many years including the time of the war. He passed away before I came to know “comfort women” issues, but my mother said that my grandfather never wanted to talk about anything about his experience in the war in China. He simply refused to talk about it. I assume that on top of all difficulties he faced as a young soldier, he also knew those terrible crimes committed by the Japanese military against Chinese women there. I see the similar culture of silence here in Cambodia, where people experienced war do not want to talk about it and there is an environment where it is difficult for post-conflict generation to ask questions about war.
With this personal experience, that I was so shocked with information about “comfort women”, it has taught me a lesson - the importance of history education from women’s perspective. When former “comfort women” started to break the silence of 50 years, they were challenging the culture of silence. Culture of silence, which pressured them not to speak about the crimes – to hide the fact that they were forced to be victims of the Japanese military. Culture of silence is a vicious cycle. If those women can not speak about the violence that happened 50 years ago, it is also difficult for women in present times to speak about violence they suffer. It is a cycle. You need to get out of this cycle immediately otherwise it will continue forever and men with impunity repeat violence against women.
When I started to teaching at PUC about sexual violence in my gender studies class, back in 2002-2003, I often asked my students about GBV in KR. No student knew about it. They said that they never studied KR issues in schools. At that time it was still very sensitive. Their parents refused to talk about it at home, and they did not dare to ask about it for fear that their parents may get upset or angry to be asked about horrible past. This made me to pay particular attention to the importance of teaching the truth about GBV in KR.
However, there was no documentation which I could use in the class work. No one did the research into GVB in KR. This made me to write a research proposal to document stories of GBV in KR so that I can use them as resource materials for teaching. It can be also a part of historical evidence of sexual violence during KR.