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© 2012 AFPComfort women photographer pleased by Japan court
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Yubaru
This is a shocker, and I never thought I would hear myself self say this but thumbs up to the Japanese courts.
It's nice to see that the Japanese courts pushed this one through. The Japanese public, particularly the younger generations need to know what their own history is and exhibits like this are one step in the right direction.
alliswellinjapan
The article in my view lacks factual depth in it's use of unverifiable terms such as "many" or "some" while failing to touch upon the official view and position of the country. The reasoning of the court rule has nothing to do with the theme itself but the article is very (presumably intentionally) misleading on that front as well. I can see the reporter seeking to bring this to the next level to make sure it captures larger attention, but wonder if it represents true journalism.
Cletus
Yeah they bowed to threats from rightwing nutters like the mayors of Tokyo and Nagoya who deny any wrongdoing on the part of their beloved Japan. Good to see this guy has the courage of his convictions and good on the courts for actually making a logical sensible decision.
Jimizo
Great to hear the common sense of the court and a minor victory over the idiots. Well done Mr.Ahn Sehong. I'll be visiting - hope to see you.
Tom Webb
It's about time for the truth to come out. Mr. Ahn's exhibit can put a face to the sex-slavery by the Imperial Japanese armed forces.
smithinjapan
Wow... a lot of people thumbing down those who agree with the courts on this one, so I expect a few thumbs down, too. Probably the same right-wing mentality that had the show shelved in the beginning. What's 'amusing' about this kind of thing is that a lot of right-wingers and ALL of the government are extremely keen to say, "The issue is settled" as soon as it comes up in courts, with victims seeking damages, or at the very least, an apology and PROPER recognition of what happened, but you say the same thing about, say, certain islands belonging to other nations that administer them and the issue is NEVER closed.
I have no doubt most people will be unaware of this exhibition, but I hope at least a few can go see it and learn a little bit about what has been white-washed or removed from text-books by ultra-nationalists who claim to be 'historians'.
CrazyJoe
Japan is a democracy. I wonder if South Korea would allow a Japanese to hold a "Takeshima belongs to Japan" exhibition.
Opinionhated
It really takes a male brain to fail to see how that does not really make it better. Doubly so if that male brain is a right winger.
You see, at the very least the Japanese military knew what was going on, but continued to allow the soldiers to keep raping these women. And you can't say the soldiers didn't know, because when you pay your money and walk into a room with a crying woman curled up in the corner or chained to the bed, you know full well she is a sex slave and you know full well sex with her is rape. And you are still a slaver if you only pay for her for an hour and you are still an MFing rapist.
And knowing all this, and your military leaders knowing this, you and your government are still liable for compensation. So thanks for admitting Japan needs to pay up right wing morons.
And I don't know if Nikon caved to threats or suddenly realized what it was all about. I don't see myself buying anything with Nikon written on it in the future.
Christina O'Neill
Anyone who was unaware of the exhibition will due to the ensueing publicity of the court case, be fully aware of it now. Nikon having agreed to the display initialy, may have been better advised to have stuck by their agreement. The publicity has also highlighted the threats towards Ahn and his family, who have attempted to discourage him,a particular nasty type of censorship. I admire the fact he has gone ahead with the exhibition despite the intimidation
timtak
That there were "sex slaves" is reported by AFP as if fact, when this "fact" is disputed. As far as I am aware, there are "many" in Japan who do not only believe that the army were not involved in sex slavery, but also believe that subcontracting pimps did not use trickery. I am not saying (as some believe) that 100% of the women were consenting (and this fact is a tragedy) but, in any brothel system, such as set up in Korea during the Korean war for UN/US soldiers which used the same advertisements (see below), or any labour system, will have exceptional cases of trickery and or misunderstanding.
Points of note for me:
*The reason most often stated (e.g. on the English Wikipedia page) for the existence of trickery and therefore slavery is that adverts in Korean national newspapers were for "comfort women." If this is evidence, then in my humble opinion the case for 'sex slavery' is exceptionally weak. (I do believe there is other evidence however, please see below)
*Were adverts for "comfort women" as opposed to "prostitutes", sensitively euphemistic or deceptive? Why was the same wording used to recruit Koreans by Koreans during the Korean war? In Asian society is it likely that anyone would advertise for "prostitutes"? Who would have been mislead by such adverts?
The salary at ten to twenty* times that of a nurse or private soldier was clearly indicated. No qualifications were mentioned. What proportion of those that accepted this employ believed that they were to be paid 10 times or more the wage of a nurse for anything other than sex? Had the adverts been explicit in their services, would there have been more or less suffering as a result? Had the adverts been completely explicit then presumably no one would have been 'tricked". But all those that accepted the adverts would have had still greater stigma attached to their activities and there would have been, I presume, fewer respondents. If there had been fewer respondents for this reason, how would this have affected instances of rape in war zones?
*There are many people today that work for similar or less wages providing similar services. In Japan, coitus for money is illegal. However, as far as I am aware, other sex services are not. All "massage" services on any part of the customer's body, using any part of the massage provider's body, other than the female sex organ, is legal. The hourly wage for someone providing "massage service," is freely displayed on Japanese streets. This rate is at similar rate (ten or so times that of the hourly rate of a nurse). Presumably the service providers only receive a fraction of the customers cost due to the involvement of 'middle men'. Even if they were to receive 80 percent of the cost displayed on billboards, they would be receiving no more than was received by comfort women at the earlier part of the war.
*Thus if there was sex slavery at that time, when people were so poor that some were dying of starvation, then presumably for someone to participate in such professions now should suggest that there is rampant slavery now, in view of the incentives being so much less (far fewer people are starving in the recruitment areas now), and the opportunity costs so much greater (there are many other opportunities of employment now).
I guess that some reading my comment above may conclude that sex slavery is alive and well in Japan today. That is not my belief. I am sure that there is not zero, tragic, coercion even today. There is tragic coercion in many areas of society.
I personally do believe strongly that there were many instances of rape and slavery in occupied territories by individuals both military and civilians, and I feel this to be a tragedy beyond words. I have seen and read testimony that makes that fact certain in my own mind (and broke my heard). I think that the case of Dutch women captured in Indonesia, and some other women in Indonesia are such tragic instances. I feel sure in my own mind that there are some Korean women who were tricked. Horrible.
However it is also my belief that the "comfort women" system (by which I mean to refer to the system that used the aforementioned national newspaper advertisements) , carried out by army subcontractors was very different from, and designed (especially in the wake of Nanking were there was widespread rape by the accounts I have read) to prevent such tragedy, and not to trick anyone.
Finally it distresses me that in my humble opinion so much empathy is placed on the plight of the sex worker to the detriment of those that are 'tricked' to working for, for instance, pyramid trading schemes, franchises, and all manner of enterprises that may overwork and cause death, including via suicide, and injury towards their workers.
megosaa
this is Ahn-believable.. well done!
GW
WoW the courts ordering nikon to do the display, never thought I wud see the day, but VERY GLAD it happened, wouldnt it be nice to so more of this in the future!
GW
As for nikon, hang your heads in utter shame!
I too will no longer consider their products!
And to Ahn-san THANK YOU for making this possible, very well done!
Lowly
The more openness and exchange the better!! Of painful things as much as joyful.
But, is it just me, or did anyone else think the title is a little inappropriate? Couldn't different wording be used?
alliswellinjapan
timtak: Wow. Much more enlightening than any shallow article. Does not change the hardships of the women of those days nonetheless but journalism should be all about factual depth and a window to the bigger picture. If it were just for the sake of providing the everday people cathartis through telling them simply what they want to hear regardless of reality then journalism is not needed and we should all pull our intellectual shutters down. Becomes more of a role for hollywood to play rather for the people to joyfully cheer about.
JohhnyGlitterball
@Timtak
I have seen your attempted revisions on wiki re this subject and also concerning the Nanking massacre or incident as you prefer to call it.
alliswellinjapan
In any event the people in Japan should be proud that a legal decision was reached to protect the freedom of speech from concerns over political intent because this is what it was actually all about. Poor old Nikon.
timtak
@JohhnyGlitterball Thank you for reading my attempted revisions. I hope you agreed with them. I can't remember using the word "Incident." I think that the "Rape of Nanking" is very appropriate description. Rape was I believe carried out on a massive scale. Please read the first hand reports. Whether or not there was a massacre is off this topic but, it should be clear that rape is not necessarily accompanied by massacre and, my assertion in this topic, sex is not necessary accompanied by slavery. But, due to I believe cultural factors, sex crimes get imho excessive attention. More attention than, for instance, those (Koreans included) working in Japanese mines. Was there mining slavery, and factory slavery of Koreans during the same war? Somehow the miners have been almost forgotten.
Fadamor
@timtak,
That was a long, reasoned "response" to something this article isn't about. I don't think anybody doubts that there were prostitutes working of their own volition in Korea during the WWII. What the right-wing faction of Japan wants to do is label ALL Korean women who had coitus by Japanese military during the war as being those volitional prostitutes and you and I both know that wasn't the case. There was rape and there was slavery for the purpose of sex that had nothing to do with prostitutes - unless you want to argue that they were "prostitutes" because they were "paid" with their life being able to continue as long as they kept their Japanese master happy. But trust me, you do NOT want to take that stance.
presto345
Shame on Nikon. They have shown themselves in a very bad light and that could be bad for business.
timtak
@ Fadamor
Pukey2
Nikon - as gutless as Prince Hotel.
mtwildman
War crimes are terrible...this information needs to be available to the Japanese public...the horrific experiments conducted on Chinese prisoners in Manchuria need to exposed as well.
YuriOtani
While I do not agree with compensation from Japan do approve of these exhibits. Free speak and expression need to be protected. Making threats against him is just being a thug. The police need to get out of their Kobans and do something. Though I believe the cow will jump over the moon first. The "right wingers" need to calm down and their opposition gives the comfort women's argument empowerment.
Yubaru
There is irrefutable evidence from outside of Japan regarding the issue of the comfort women. Personally speaking it hurts in my heart, that the country where I now live, my 2nd home, continually refuses to accept the fact that in their history the Imperial Japanese Army used these women as slaves.
After WWII ended and during the occupation of Japan by the US Military countless numbers of Japanese women were subjected to similar fates, sexual slaves, of the occupational army, the US. They only were stopped when cases of venereal disease reach almost epidemic proportions and MacArthur ordered that all US military stop visiting brothels SET UP BY THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT TO SERVICE US MILITARY personnel.
The issue of the comfort women extends not only to Korean women but also throughout much of SE Asia and includes many Japanese women as well.
Shame on Japan for continually covering over it's history and making trying to make this issue disappear.
yokatta
I'm disappointed in Nikon! I'm a big Nikon camera user, but heartbroken with their rightwing stance. Shame on them!
JohnBecker
I'm stretching here, but isn't it possible that Nikon, after the right-wing uproar, approached the court and said, "We're going to cancel the show, you hand down a ruling that says we have to go ahead with the show." That way, the show goes on, and Nikon has the black van crowd off their backs.
Like I said, this is a stretch.
YuriOtani
John, I think you are right. They were feeling the heat and being spineless gave in. Then they were happy the court made the ruling to take the pressure off of them. Looked through his pictures but do not know what "heamu" means. Perhaps the government should pay them and we can get past this situation.
YGHome3
It is good that exhibition went ahead, and it is very good that the court has done justice! Good indication about the Japanese court system! The young generation must be aware of the atrocities that occurred. They must know that their country was both a victim of aggression and atrocities committed by western powers, as well as itself a perpetrator of atrocities committed against the neighbors. The "comfort women" must be compensated, if justice is to be done. Also, the discussion above contains some important references to other cases of mass prostitution which was actually sex slavery (see timtak's mentioning of Korean prostitutes during the Korean War and Yubaru's Reference to Japanese prostitutes in the period that followed WWII).
alliswellinjapan
While the reaction here was nothing surprising in that many have expressed their catharthis in believing (or wanting to believe) the twist that this article has generated to the actual reality which anyone with command of the Japanese language can easily identify, it is also good to have confirmed not everyone here is completely biased and do have a more balanced view. It may be interesting to have an intellectual debate over this matter also bringing forth the prior example of Smithsonian's cancellation of their originally planned exhibition of the atomic bombings after strong political resistance.
Goals0
You can see her that the exhibition has been cancelled: http://www.nikon-image.com/activity/salon/schedule/index_en.htm#section01
I'm one who thinks the 'sex slaves' terminology is ridiculous. Nearly all were prostitutes who chose to do well-paid work.
Yubaru
Goals you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking that nearly all the women were hookers. Japans argument is that they PAID compensation back when relations were normalized between SKorea and here, which is an acknowledgement as well in a manner of speaking that they were guilty. Dont bury your head in the sand on this issue.
YGHome3
Any prostitution is slavery. Mass prostitution in a situation of privation is certainly a type of slavery. But what we are speaking about here is far more severe. We are speaking about sex slaves who were abducted and tortured. Denying the facts regarding the atrocities is tantamount to raping the "comfort women" again. Their cry should be heard.
Opinionhated
I am not so sure that is true. That secret agreement and compensation package made no mention of compensation for sex slaves. But it did contain a clause that no one else could claim compensation. So I think Japan's stance is that the sex slaves cannot claim compensation as per the agreement, despite the fact that there was no one representing the sex slaves, and nobody told them they were barred from it. It took 40 years for the secret agreement to come to light.
In the mean time, Japanese courts, knowing of the agreement I suspect, just said they had no proof and made other such evil and incredulous excuses without telling the truth. Now that the treaty is known, I am really not sure what their excuse is. I just know that its an empty excuse either way, and Japan's shame can never end like this.
Opinionhated
It was not always sex slavery. The comfort woman system also had well paid willing prostitutes for officers, who are fairly called comfort women. The right wing despicable scum will always bring them up to try and prove the whole system was clean when it was mostly dirty and mostly filled with actual sex slaves. Also the comfort woman system was probably fairly legit in the beginning, but got more and more nasty as it went on. The right wing scum will also bring up evidence from early in the system but tend to avoid or criticize anything from later.
And no, prostitution is not always slavery. That might seem to be a politically convenient statement, but its also an utter lie. In the end, it probably won't help the issue to try and force a wild statement like that. Its just so obviously untrue that it subverts the sex slave case. Most sane people are not going to buy it.
Opinionhated
TimTak, you seem to have gone off the deep end with the advertisements. It does not matter what people advertise, it matters what they DID. Like if I go on Craigslist and advertise myself for romantic dates, but rape all the women who show up, do you really think any court is going to accept as evidence my Craigslist ad for romantic dates?
"But your honor! I could not have raped them as I promised romantic dates in my ad!" No dude, it doesn't work that way. Never has. Never will.
What we have are thousands of women from different nations who all speak different languages who could not have possibly met all telling very similar stories since before the internet. Sure, some are lying, but most people are not liars,so most are not. Plus, very few women are willing to bring on the shame of being a former a prostitute even in old age. Plus, few liars would keep plugging away at this year after year while getting nothing from nobody. To bear the shame for no money this long, surely most are telling the truth.
Goals0
I'm wrong about the exhibition not taking place:
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201206260090
Feihu
Some things do not really convince one about this situation. It's on record that the Japanese government made two attempts to pay reparations. One in 1965 and another in the 1990's. ROK got money from the Japanese but spent it on other things and gave none of it to these people who deserve it. The Japanese politicians were not smart to give the money two the Korean government in 65 because the level of corruption was plain to see. They (the Japanese government) should have demanded to give it directly to the victims. The Sixth Republic after 29 years is still trying to cleanse itself of a level of corruption that could only take place among Korean politicians used to almost a half century of corrupt governments. If the Japanese keep giving the Koreans are going to continue to ask.
The other thing is that today 18 Koreans were arrested in Australia for allegedly luring Korean women into prostitution in Australia after the latter entered the country on working holiday visas. That according to the Korean press. Something smells kinda funny about this whole comfort women thing. The Korean government better give these women some of that money they got from Japan ...time is running out. The Japanese may be denying their involvement in this but so are the Koreans. This same thing is a problem between Japan and Korea with the gangsters on both side dealing in the human skin trade. And many of the Japanese gangsters are zainich Koreans. I hate to sound anti-Korean but isn't about time for the Korean government to man up and admit to their own crimes instead of continually playing the victim.
timtak
The adverts do no (of course) prove innocence, but they are used as, in my view bogus, proof of guilt.
I do believe that some were forced.
One of the greatest tragedies is that some were bought from/sold by family members who received a financial advance.
Sadly this and other forms of coercion remains common throughout the world today.
According to one report more than one hundred thousand sex slaves were freed in one year in this century in China alone.
The numbers in this comment bear consideration.
alliswellinjapan
I am glad this debate is finally heading towards the appropriate direction based on the shared understanding regarding the difficulty to simply label things either in black or white. Assuming we discontinue with the unconstructive means of hasty stereotyping of any country for instant catharthis (which this article initially triggered), the only clarity we have on our hands right now is the severity of the sufferings that these women are likely to have gone through which should by no means be taken lightly, which the exhibition will hopefully put on effective display. Meanwhile, the critical unclarity we have on our hands is the question of monetary compensation for the damages caused. The Japanese government will continue to acknowledge its responsibilities based on what it can confirm to be factual, but it will never be willing to make any further payment. One can easily see that this is no longer a diplomatic matter as something to be discussed and settled between the countries involved, but rather a legal matter as something to be discussed and settled between the victims and the responsible party(ies) whether it be the entire country of Japan or some other individual groups or persons inside or outside of Japan.
YuriOtani
Changed my mind, ROK has become like Russia as it is not worthwhile to make any agreements with them. They will just ask for more money probably billions saying the 65 treaty was not enough.
nandakandamanda
Only pictures of Korean women? That's a bit unbalanced. Not surprising that some people objected.
I thought for a minute that his exhibition was about comfort women in general.