‘Comfort women’ in South Korea who serviced U.S. forces seek justice
BY JEFF KINGSTON
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES
Wellesley College political scientist Katherine Moon, author of “Sex Among Allies,” criticizes the court because it did not rule that the women’s human rights had been violated. She found that “many women were chronically trafficked, raped, beaten and otherwise coerced by private citizens (traffickers and pimps, bar owners, managers) as well as U.S. servicemen, while the ROK [Republic of Korea] government, namely the local police and camp town officials, turned a blind eye or facilitated the system of sex commerce that abused women.”
If so they should be called "sex slaves"
Why is it American professor JEFF KINGSTON uses the euphemism in the title.
Moon, however, argues there are key distinctions, as “abuse of women’s bodies for forced or coerced sexual ‘service’ to men has occurred for millennia throughout various cultures, but Japan is the only country or state that had systematically developed an institution of forced sex as part of its military organization and operations.
That's controversial.
Hata argues
The information in Against Our Will is important because its descriptions of the brothels in Vietnam mirror those patronized by Japanese soldiers.
NO ORGANIZED OR FORCED RECRUITMENT:
MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT COMFORT WOMEN
AND THE JAPANESE MILITARY
Hata Ikuhiko
Professor Emeritus, Nihon University
Even supposing that Moon is right, that does not mean the comfort women didn't suffer enough to get apology and compensation.
The conditions the sex slaves for U.S. military were in were as bad as those the sex slaves were in.
The Korean government and American military are involved in the military brothels as pretty much enough to be held responsible as the Japanese military was.
She[Alexis Dudden] asks, however, “Do American GI practices today spanning from Okinawa and Yokosuka to Guam and Pisa and Manila and Baghdad make the history of what happened to up to 200,000 women, girls and young men during the 1930s and 40s under the auspices of the Japanese government any less awful? No.”
No. But what happened to sex slaves for US military in South Korea after WW Ⅱ under the auspices of the Korean governmentand and the U.S. military , and what has been happening to the women at the American camp town in Asia are as awful as what happened to Asian sex slaves during the 1930s and 40s under the auspices of the Japanese government.
And yet these American professors like Moon, KINGSTON & Dudden DO NOTHING to help the victim to get apology and compensation from Korean government and American government.
This stands in stark contrast to Japanese historians, Japanese media and Japanese activists who worked hard to help the "comfort women" for the Japanese military
The "comfort women" in question are talking about the damages done by the Korean government and American military. But these professors are talking as if Japan was worse-which is controversial- and therefore, Korea and the U.S. didn't need to apologize nor compensate.
Walter Hatch, professor of government and director of the Oak Institute for Human Rights, Colby College, contends that the ruling “exposes the hypocrisy of Seoul in advancing the claim that Japan was uniquely horrible in its treatment of comfort women during World War II. Why should gijichon (camp towns) for U.S. troops be different from comfort stations for Japanese troops?”
Regarding what he views as a double standard on comfort women culpability, Hatch adds, “I am astounded by the hypocrisy of Korean government officials and American critics of Japanese wartime behavior.”
I agree with Walter Hatch; I am also astounded by the hypocrisy of American professors like JEFF KINGSTON & Alexis Dudden
They are just as cruel as Japanese extreme right-wingers who say "comfort women" are just prostitutes.
