Comfort Women

Why were the Korean Comfort Women “silent” so long? To answer this question, one thing you will need to think about is how much women’s “worth” is tied to their status as virgins or “sexually pure” and how women who are not “pure” are shamed in societies. You also need to reflect on how rape has been characterized as simply an “unfortunate consequence” of war—this is not true, of course; rape does not “just happen.”

Why could the words and actions of Japanese officials and government be interpreted as attempts to further silence them?

The Korean Comfort women, to put it lightly, went through Hell and back. They were kidnapped, raped, and tortured, both physically and psychologically. Whatever respect they had for themselves was lost. They were broken. And so for the longest time, they did not speak. To speak was to admit to the world the pain they suffered. To expose themselves emotionally after having built up miles worth of walls to try and protect themselves from the reality of the terrors they went through. To admit they were shamed and impure, and risk being isolated and looked down upon by society. They had been wronged, but they feared the rest of the world would not look at them with the sympathy they deserved.

Throughout essentially all time, rape has not viewed as horrible of a crime as it truly is. It seems to be universally accepted that men fighting in war have needs that need be fulfilled by any means necessary. It matters not how or who gets harmed so long as the soldiers succeed in their mission, whatever it may be. It could be a mother of three children who simply happened to be in the vicinity at the time or prisoners of war. Regardless of whomever it may be, it is, as stated above, regarded as an "unfortunate circumstance of war." That said, the Comfort Women were very much aware that were they to speak out, justice would hardly be served, and that, if anything, they would be the ones more likely to be harmed for reasons stated above. The ones responsible for the cruelty they faced would more than likely be let off with a slap on the wrist, they believed.

Now, however, they speak up because they want the Japanese to pay for what they did to them. They wish the shame they once had and still have to fall to the Japanese. The Japanese government, however, is more than willing to try to allow the cruelty to go unnoticed. They have tried to settle things with the victims privately many times by paying them out of the notice of the public eye. The women, however, will never rest easy until the Japanese own up to what they did. And even then, the physical and emotional scars will still remain.