Women: Society: News: Hankyoreh

Harvard Law School’s Mitsubishi Japanese Law Professor John Mark Ramseyer’s recent paper on the Japanese military’comfort women’ is sexist and patriarchal about the atrocities experienced by numerous women who were forced to live as sex slaves by the Japanese military after World War II (Asia-Pacific War). , With a colonial view. We are concerned that these claims can be used to justify violence against women and systems of sexual slavery and sexual exploitation. Amidst the battlefields of World War II, numerous Asian-Pacific women were kidnapped, deceived, or forcibly taken to “comfort stations” by the Japanese military. Women in colonial and occupied areas in Japan suffered from anti-human rights violence in the Japanese military sexual slavery system, which was a mixture of sexism, patriarchy, colonialism, imperialism and racism. Some surviving survivors have been forced to remain silent for decades. But this terrible history is not simply a thing of the past. The issue of sexual slavery in the Japanese military is also linked to the current sexual violence during armed conflict, the culture of sexual violence in universities, post-colonial trauma, and the consciousness of the #MeToo movement. As feminist scholars, students and graduates, we have written this statement to speak out against the sexist, colonialist views of injustice, oppression, and violence. Professor Ramseyre’s recent thesis, published in the journal International Review of Law and Economics, introduced the Japanese military’comfort women’ system as voluntary prostitution, denying the sexual slavery system. Professor Ramseyre’s arguments have been described as’contract prostitutes’ of victims of the Japanese military sex slavery, ignoring colonies and wars, unequal power structures and structural violence. He distorts the historical truth by claiming that victims of the Japanese military sex slavery were able to voluntarily support, negotiate rates, and freely quit. Professor Ramseyre’s argument follows the Japanese government’s claim to evade responsibility for serious human rights violations committed during the Asian Pacific War, without critical analysis. Numerous studies over the past 30 years, reports prepared by the UN Special Rapporteur and international organizations, and the 2000 Women’s International War Criminal Court recognized that the nature of the Japanese military’comfort women’ was organized sexual slavery, denied this and criticized the Japanese government’s attempts to distort the truth. I’ve been doing it. Victims of sexual slavery were deprived of the right to move freely, suffered threats and physical violence, and continued to be sexually assaulted and abused. Professor Ramseyre’s claim is a secondary offense to the victims, and a violent act that once again inflicts the deep scars left by sex slaves. It is an act that conspires and justifies the Japanese government’s attempt to deliberately erase the history of violence. We also condemn Professor Ramseyre for distorting the testimony of survivors of the Japanese military’comfort women’. After August 14, 1991, when the first public testimony of Kim Hak-soon, a survivor of the Japanese military’comfort women,’, hundreds of survivors from Korea, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, East Timor, the Netherlands and Japan bravely revealed their experiences and #MeToo You have become a pioneer in the movement. Although individual experiences vary in detail, survivors have clearly demonstrated that Japanese military sexual slavery is a systematically committed war crime. But Professor Ramseyer’s selective use of survivors’ testimony has erased the holistic and multifaceted understanding of the survivors’ experiences that feminist scholars have advocated. All too often we have seen survivors of sexual violence being silenced. Sexual violence survivors are often silenced in private as well as in a variety of public spaces, even on Harvard and many other university campuses. In this reality, survivors of the Japanese military sexual slavery system have courageously break silence and testify, speak out with citizens around the world, and build transnational solidarity to lead the feminist movement. Encouraged by survivors’ testimony, researchers have revealed that the Japanese government has the responsibility of systematically establishing and organizing comfort stations across Asia Pacific. Among the documents and records that clarify historical facts, Japanese military records discovered in 1992 by Professor Yoshimi Yoshiaki Chuo University are included. When the document revealed that the Japanese military supervised private businessmen and directly mobilized women, the Japanese government recognized some government intervention in the Japanese military’comfort women’ system through the’Kono Talk’ in 1993. Many data prepared by the Japanese Empire, the US military, and the Dutch government also contributed to deepening the historical understanding of the Japanese military sexual slavery system. Professor Ramseyre’s argument also justifies the Japanese military sexual slavery system by using the existence of the “gongchang system” and normalizes the exploitation of women’s bodies. In the historical context of the “gong-chang system” that the Japanese government tolerated and promoted in the face of sexist discourse justifying male sexuality, generally poor and socially marginalized women became the targets of trafficking and exploitation. Despite the fact that domestic laws and international treaties ratified by Japan in the early 1900s banned the trafficking of women and children for the purpose of prostitution, the public commencement system persisted. Therefore, Professor Remzeier’s argument is to justify the continuation of another oppression through the universality of women’s oppression. Numerous researchers have already contributed to understanding the system and phenomenon of the Japanese military sexual slavery system from various angles without relying on sexist discourse. The purpose of this statement is not to violate academic freedom. The purpose is to inform what it means to argue that follows a patriarchal and colonial perspective, instead of elucidating the fixed oppression and interconnected structure. As a community, we want to reaffirm the value of equality and justice in the face of the discourse that justifies sex slavery. Violence and sexual exploitation against women must be ended from the past to today to create societies and institutions that respect women’s rights and the struggle for justice for survivors. Recent social movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo and #RhodesMustFall have led us to critically reflect on the role of higher education in the pursuit of truth, justice and equality. We believe in the importance of research, knowledge, and education that enable students to ponder and think critically about historical and contemporary injustice. We believe that when we face a history of oppression and injustice, we can learn to create a more just society. Academic communities should not be taught to condone sexist discourse that persists in punishment for sexual violence. As feminist researchers, students, and alumni of Harvard University and other higher education institutions, we use this statement to help the academic community speak critically against the continuation of sexual violence, sexism, patriarchy, colonialism, and racism in academia. I hope you can. We require universities and higher education institutions to: -Establish and reinforce guidelines for communities in schools to reduce the damage of gender, colonialism and racism and promote diversity and equality. -Proactively investigate gender discrimination, colonialism, and racist hate speech and behavior as violations of relevant university regulations and Title IX. -Support school diversity and promote critical dialogue on historical discrimination as well as structural discrimination. -Establish a reporting system and resources for support for survivors of sexual violence in the school and for trauma healing, and implement educational programs and institutional measures to end sexual violence impunity. -Do not invest in or receive investments in war criminal companies, and disclose information about funds supported by those companies.