V-Day Spotlight Campaign: Comfort Women

Justice to 'Comfort Women'

Background on the annual V Day Spotlight
Each year V Day creates a Spotlight around a particular group of women who are experiencing violence with the goal of raising awareness and funds to put a worldwide media spotlight on this area and to raise funds to aide groups who are addressing it.

How can you help?
We are asking you all to educate your communities about the issue and to pledge 10% of the proceeds from your V Day production to the 'comfort women' through this year's Spotlight. (Information on where to send checks is found in the "Production Checklist" and "Follow-up Report" section of this Kit.)

V- Day Spotlight 2006: Justice to 'Comfort Women'
The Global Campaign for Justice to 'comfort women' has its roots in several years of collaboration between V-Day and 'comfort women' activists in their struggle for justice. In 2002, local organizers of V-Day Philippines honored 'comfort women' survivors in their V-Day performance of "The Vagina Monologues" for an audience of 8,500. After the show, Eve Ensler promised the Filipina survivors that V-Day would work with them until justice was served. Eve's interview with them is featured in V-Day's award-winning documentary film, "Until the Violence Stops."

The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery yielded additional links across East and Southeast Asia, and V-Day Special Representative Hibaaq Osman convened organizations from eight countries in Seoul in November 2004 to discuss how V-Day could support the ongoing advocacy for 'comfort women' survivors. Hosted by the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, the international planning meeting culminated in the declaration of the Global V-Day Campaign for Justice to 'Comfort Women.'

V-Day's spotlight coincides with global concerted efforts to get retribution for 'comfort women' and pays tribute to the many activists who have worked on this issue.

Background: Comfort Women
The euphemism 'comfort women' was coined by imperial Japan to refer to young females of various ethnic and national backgrounds who were forced to offer sexual services to the Japanese troops during the Asia/Pacific Wars between 1932 and 1945. Some were minors sold into 'comfort stations,' others were deceptively recruited by middlemen, and still more were detained and forcibly abducted. Estimates of the number of 'comfort women' range between 50,000 to 200,000.

In the early 1990s, nearly a half a century after the end of WWII, Korean victims of Japan's military sexual slavery, followed by other survivors in China, Taiwan, North Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Timor L'Este, broke their silence and began to call for justice and reparations for the unanswered war crimes. Despite years of protests, including the weekly demonstrations held by survivors in South Korea in front of the Japanese embassy for the past 13 years, the Japanese government still denies legal responsibility. Now, the aging survivors are dying off one by one without any type of redress, formal apology, or historical acknowledgment by a government that stole their freedom and power for so many years.

Global V-Day Campaign for Justice to 'Comfort Women.'
August 2005 marks the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. However, for the 'comfort women,' there has been no escape from the war and no answer for its harm. In support of these women and their fight for an official apology and compensation from the Japanese government, V-Day has joined with organizations across East and Southeast Asia to launch the "Global V-Day Campaign for Justice to 'Comfort Women.'"

Given the 21st century's escalating armed conflicts, the precedent of impunity for wartime sexual violence cannot be tolerated. Furthermore, as patterns of systematic rape and sexual violence continue today in places of armed conflict such as Sudan, Congo, and Iraq, the importance of recognizing the human rights atrocity committed against women during WWII is paramount. Therefore, V-Day is proud to not only join in the 'comfort women's' crusade for reparations, but to make the campaign the V-Day Spotlight for 2006.

After convening East and Southeast Asian women's groups in Bangkok and Seoul in 2004, "The Global V-Day Campaign for Justice to 'Comfort Women" launched in New York on February 28, 2005, during the landmark session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. On August 10, 2005, international groups fighting for justice to 'comfort women' organized a Global Day of Action with simultaneous demonstrations in front of Japanese embassies around the world as part of the observance of the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. Leading up to the Global Day of Action, V-Day's partners organized multi-national efforts to bring attention to the demands of the 'comfort women' including: a global petition signed by more than 550,000 people and presented to the UN by South Korean survivors; and 60 days of demonstrations and survivors' testimonies leading up to the 60th anniversary of the war's end in the Netherlands.

In the summer of 2006, the Global Campaign will include V-Day celebrity benefit performances of "The Vagina Monologues" in Seoul and Tokyo. These performances will feature the voices of 'comfort women' in a monologue written by Playwright/V-Day Founder Eve Ensler, uniting activism with performance art to open dialogue, draw international attention and support, and reverse efforts by nationalists in Japan to erase from history one of the most horrendous war crimes against women in the 20th century. The Global Campaign will also include: a street march and folk song competition featuring the survivors and national celebrities in Taiwan; photographic exhibits, film tours, and testimonial books in Japan, Philippines, and Taiwan; a campaign for 'comfort women' history in textbooks in Japan and South Korea; and the construction of museums to document the enslavement of civilians as 'comfort women' and their ongoing struggle for justice from the Japanese government in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Through the focus and funds your V-Day Campaigns will give to our 2006 Spotlight Global Campaign, V-Day will educate and raise awareness around the world to ensure justice for the 'comfort women.'

For additional information on the current status of the 'comfort women' and the global campaign for justice to 'comfort women' visit:

The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (South Korea)

Japan V-Day Steering Committee (Japan)

Asian Centre for Women's Human Rights (Philippines)
e-mail: ascent@csi.com.ph

Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (Taiwan)

FOKUPERS - Communication Forum for East Timorese Women (Timor L'Este)
e-mail: fokupers@fokupers.minihub.org

Indonesian Women's Association for Justice (Indonesia)

Stichting Japanse Ereschulden - Japanese Honorary Debts Foundation (The Netherlands)

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Human Trafficking

"Women and children are particularly vulnerable to this modern form of slavery. Of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children trafficked across international borders each year approximately 80 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors*. Over 100,000 women are fictims of trafficking in the EU." [source]

* According to the 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report by the US Department of State office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.