Wounds of War for Japan, Korea Re-Open with Comfort Women Statue

GLENDALE, California –

Every week, 44-year-old Phyllis Kim makes spends ten minutes visiting the Comfort Women statue here.

She holds the small, bronze fists in a moment of silence. She tends to the flowers surrounding the memorial. She stands next to the statue in a show of solidarity.

Kim repeats this ritual as part of the Korean American Forum of California, the organization that helped to fund the statue and campaign for its installment in July 2013.

Phyllis Kim of the Korean American Forum of California explains each part of the Comfort Women Statue memorial on June 22, 2014 in Glendale, California.Phyllis Kim of the Korean American Forum of California explains each part of the Comfort Women Statue memorial on June 22, 2014 in Glendale, California.Amy Lieu / Amy Lieu
The so-called comfort women were the nearly 200,000 young Korean and Chinese women and girls, some as young as 14, forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during World War II. Victims have testified that they were raped up to 40 times daily. Many were abducted, threatened, or deceived into the role with promises of work as nurses or in factories.

The simple statue in this Los Angeles suburb represents justice not yet served, says Kim. But to others, it also symbolizes an open wound of war between the three East Asian countries, and has triggered a local, legal battle some see as a microcosm of lingering, international tensions.

“It’s between Japan and Korea war time…America has nothing to do with it.”
The story of the statue began with the passage of U.S. House Resolution 121 in 2007, which urged the Japanese government to “formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as ‘comfort women.'”

In 1993, the Japanese government issued a brief statement acknowledging the existence of comfort women and expressing remorse for what they endured. In 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was pressured into issuing an apology after first denying there was any evidence of women being coerced into sexual service during WWII. But he stopped short of meeting victims’ and advocates’ demands that Japan acknowledge its military was responsible.