HUMAN RIGHTS : Koreans Won’t Let Japan Bury ‘Comfort’ Issue

At 16, Kim Hak Soon was young, attractive and fiercely independent. She had run away from home and completed a demanding, three-year apprenticeship in dance and music to become a full-fledged kisaeng , the Korean equivalent of a geisha.

But she never had the chance to practice her art. While she was in Beijing looking for work, Japanese soldiers forced her into an army truck at gunpoint, then drove her to the battlefront, where a Japanese officer raped her. She was thrown into an abandoned Chinese home with four other Korean girls, and all were forced to engage in sex with Japanese soldiers.

For 50 years, Kim hid her humiliation. But in recent months she has met other survivors of Japan’s network of military brothels and learned that many women suffered far worse fates.

“I was prepared to live in pain and silence,” said Kim, now 68. But “brazen-faced lies” by Japanese officials made her go public with her story, she said, adding: “The Japanese are a third-rate race. They are cowards not to admit their past crimes.”

Although the Japanese government belatedly conceded last month that military authorities established brothels throughout their onetime empire, they insist that the estimated 70,000 to 200,000 “comfort women” were not enslaved.

Japan’s evasiveness has again brought into sharp focus its unwillingness to come to terms with its past cruelty. Many Japanese still refuse to believe that Japanese soldiers killed tens of thousands of unarmed Chinese civilians in Nanking. And Japanese conservatives are expected to try to scuttle a planned visit by Emperor Akihito to China, if it means he must apologize for past atrocities.

But South Korea doesn’t plan to let Japan bury the comfort women issue. Government and private groups are compiling evidence that Japan used force and deceit to enslave women. A 211-page interim report released by the South Korean Foreign Ministry last week includes 155 examples of women sent to work in Japanese brothels under “threatening circumstances.”

The Korean Council for Women Drafted for Sex Service by Japan-- formed by women fighting overseas sex tours by Japanese tourists--has tracked down 60 survivors of Japan’s infamous brothels. Half of the women said they were kidnaped by Japanese soldiers; the other half said they were misled by recruiters who offered them jobs as nurses or factory workers.

One woman said she was picking vegetables when soldiers abducted her and a truckload of other village girls. Another woman said she was sent to Taiwan but refused to work as a prostitute until she was beaten so badly that her bones were broken. When she tried to escape, she was sent to Manchuria, where she was forced to have sex with as many as 50 men a day.

Some women said they were tortured with bamboo slivers pushed under their nails; many spoke of ailing friends who were left to starve. After the war, Japan left the women in distant outposts; many were killed, some suspect.

Japanese military authorities originally built the brothels to control the spread of venereal disease among soldiers and to prevent troops from raping local women. Although Japanese prostitutes were first sent to the brothels, Japan later began using women from its Asian colonies, drawing most heavily from its oldest colony, Korea.

To keep the pressure on Japan, South Korean activists have organized protests in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul every week since January. On Monday, they will meet with women from the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong to broaden the campaign.

Korea’s aggressive tactics are hitting home. Japanese newspapers reported earlier this week that Japan is thinking about establishing a foundation to compensate brothel survivors. But Koreans say the compensation issue should be dealt with after Japan fully investigates itself.