Speaker: Hyunah Yang, 법학전문대학원 (School of Law), 서울대학교 (Seoul National University)

Abstract: »After a long silence in South Korean society on the issue of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery (JMSS), this topic has received widespread societal attention since the early 1990s. Testimonies of victims have been key to fueling a public discourse. Hak-soon Kim broke the ice by giving voice to her experience, in 1991, and soon other victims in Korea and throughout Asia followed. Focusing on my co-edited and co-translated book, Voices of the Comfort Women: History Rewritten from Memories (Routledge, 2023), this presentation will explore the significance of these testimonies from two perspectives—reparation of the victims and building collective memories. In observance of a 2005 United Nations’ resolution declaring that direct participation in seeking truth and justice constitutes a way of reparation for victims of human rights abuses, oral testimonies were recorded using the methods of “victim-centered” listening and a preservation of “voice.” Likewise, English translations took care to preserve the voice of these oral accounts. Furthermore, the production of Voices of the Comfort Women relied on a transnational collaboration of translators and reviewers, which spanned the Pacific Ocean. One intention of the volume was to create a “chain of memory,” linking Korean victim-survivors, Korean researchers, U.S. based scholars, and readers all over the world. These testimonies add to our collective memories of not simply JMSS, but more broadly the colonial period in Korea. Indeed, it is now unthinkable to remember the experiences of Koreans during Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945) without considering about the human rights violations perpetrated by JMSS.« (Source: Online Program)

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of Korea / Korea under Japanese rule | History of Asia: History of Japan / Shōwa era | 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