Author: Academia.edu

Abstract: »Maria Rosa Henson was the first Filipino ‘comfort woman’ to publicly come forward with her testimony, almost 50 years after the end of the Second World War in 1992. Her life story, preserved in an autobiography titled Comfort Woman: Slave of Destiny, inspired hundreds more elderly Filipino women to share their accounts with the rest of the world and demand reparations from the Japanese government. This study traces Lola (‘Grandmother’) Rosa’s narrativization of trauma into a full-length autobiography. Through literary archival and textual analysis, the consideration of collaborative writing, trauma studies theories from psychotherapy, human rights discourse, and cultural studies, this research shows how Henson used the life writing genres of autobiography and testimony to work through trauma, construct an identity of survivorhood, and engage in activism against sexual slavery and historical revisionism.« (Source: Women's History Review)

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of Japan / Shōwa era | History of Asia: History of the Philippines / Japanese occupation of the Philippines | Non-fiction: Autobiography / Rosa Henson | Prostitution: Forced prostitution / Comfort women | Sex and the law: Wartime sexual violence / Wartime sexual violence in World War II | War: Pacific War / Japanese war crimes