This morning, I attended the "For the Dignity of Girls and Women Everywhere.. .Bear Witness" to demand the official apology and reparation for the former "comfort women" from the Japanese government with more than 50 people in solidarity with other protests happening all over the world (L.A., D.C., N.Y.C, Manilla, London, Seoul, Tokyo, etc...).
It is especially significant to have such a protest at this very critical moment here in the U.S. where a Japanese American Rep. Mike Honda introduced the House Resolution 121 which calls for the Government of Japan to formally acknowledge, aplogize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Force's coercion of young women into sexual slavery during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asian and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II.
As a Zainichi Korean (Korean born and rasied in Japan), whom I think of first is my fellow Zainichi Korean halmonis ("grandmother" in Korean) who were forced to become "comfort women" and continue to live in Japan. Their experience as "former comfort women" is very different from that of those who now reside in Korea or elsewhere. Zainichi Korean halmonis live the reality of on-going Racism & Colonialsim on a daily basis in the Japanese society today, where their voice is continuously ignored and their existence is comletely denied. Today, I prayed for them and all women in the world who experienced and are experiencing sexual violence.
