Korean Comfort Women

Why were the Korean Comfort Women “silent” so long? Why could the words and actions of Japanese officials and government be interpreted as attempts to further silence them?

They were made to feel shame, when the government forced them to provide sex services, who should feel the shame for taking the purity of the girls. The women were to provide comfort to the men on the front lines. They were earning good money, so it wasn’t discrimination in the eyes of the men. The woman cannot escape the memory of the rap during the war; it is a part of them. The woman thought that the solution would be that rape, sex education, should be taught to prevent it from happening again.

The principals of the schools manipulated the children into choosing to go to the war line, so that the woman could become comfort woman. Some of the woman on the ships to the front line had their first menstrual periods and then were forced to have sex with men, which resulted in such pain and disrespect that led them to be unable to carry children.

The women were in court and punished. The men justify that the problem of morality has never been solved. Mankind is the cause of the comfort woman. They sought consolation because there was a possibility that they might die tomorrow. The men threatened the woman by telling them they would kill them if they didn’t follow five “simple” orders. The argument of money was not a valid argument in the eyes of the woman because there was no use for money in the military. There was nothing to trade for, they were provided with everything they needed. The men gave nicknames to the condoms, such as “lets attack”. They sought rape as another way for them to gain power of the women. Japanese men were very prideful and saw shame in anything which they didn’t gain or control.

The documents were destroyed that had any evidence of the comfort women; moreover documents of the war were destroyed. The Japanese didn’t win, it was shameful in their culture, and they didn’t want any record of their loss. The women were beat to the point that they lost their hearing, bones were broken, scares of puss were formed, and they did not receive any medical attention. It was sex with beasts, not humans.

Documents were burned. The testimonies of the women were not true unless there was proof. The government acted as if nothing had ever happened. The government should put aside its pride and acknowledge the issue, but that was against the Japanese culture. The government failed. They failed to take care of its woman, its people, at the most serious time it needed to, wartime. The government was more focused on fixing the economy than fixing its moral issued. It was more focused on itself than its people. The women were not valued.

The government sealed everything with treaties and stamps, but couldn’t apologize to its people. Shots were given for the pain the women. The women fought with the men all night, but they were just too strong.

The women were stripped from their rights of life. Since they were viewed as shameful because of something they had been victim of, no one wanted to marry them. They were forced to live alone with the taunting memories of what had happened to them right at their very first menstrual period. They were stripped of youth and stripped of life. They were forced to grow up and them left alone.

The government officials never recognized anything was gone to the women and acted as though there was nothing wrong with them. They were found shameful in society and had to live lives alone because they were looked down upon because they were not pure and could not bear children. No one wanted to be with them. Thus they were left alone to carry the pain and the terrifying memories that they were victims of. The Japanese had a corrupt government in the sense that they were not even acknowledged until the early 1990s. The women were silenced on the outside, but never dealt with the inner self screaming daily. There was no escaping the memory of torture, especially by their own people.