Cries for women’s justice ring out in Berlin

A gathering to commemorate former comfort women in Berlin on Aug. 14. (Chae Hye-won)

Women of all nationalities gather to demand end to wartime sexual violence

The winter after I left for Germany, I happened to discover an international event that focuses on the issue of “comfort women” drafted for sexual slavery under the Japanese military. It was my first encounter with AG “Trostfrauen,” a council led by the German civic group Korea Verband for countermeasures on the comfort women issue. I subsequently took part in efforts to inform Germans about the issue.

AG “Trostfrauen” had members from various countries – including South Korea, Germany, Japan, and Congo – who are engaged in different activities to eliminate sexual violence against women and restore the human rights and dignity of women victimized by war crimes. These include efforts to raise comfort women statues in Germany and have the German parliament adopt a resolution to resolve the comfort women issue. Through these activities, the council is alerting Europeans to the fact that the comfort women issue is an example of “femicide” and a matter of wartime sexual violence.

These efforts echo the Butterfly Fund created by late former comfort women Kim Bok-dong and Gil Won-ok to prevent the reoccurrence of wartime sexual violence and support victims. A significant meeting in this regard took place in Berlin in May 2017 when Gil presented Butterfly Fund money to a Yazidi woman named Marwa al Aliko while visiting Germany to spread the women about the comfort women issue. On Aug. 3, 2014, the group Islamic State (IS) perpetrated acts of genocide and femicide when it occupied Shingal (Sinjar), a town in northern Iraq with residents from the country’s Yazidi minority. Over 10,000 Yazidis were killed, while more than 7,000 women and children were abducted. Over 3,000 are still missing.

Former comfort woman Gil Won-ok and Marwa, of the Yazidi ethnic group in May 2017. (provided by the Yazidi Women’s Council)

These two women, Gil and Al Aliko, shared their experiences in their ongoing fight to help women suffering physical and sexual abuse in war zones. Fundamentally, their stories were the same: the 93-year-old Gil having been abducted by the Japanese military at the age of 13, Al Aliko having been captured by IS terrorists at 21. After the encounter, Al Aliko said she was “grateful for the meeting” and would “continue to fight to make sure the perpetrators are punished and such things do not happen again.”

The special encounter did not end there. Since last year, a “week of action to resist wartime sexual violence and femicide” has been held in Berlin from Aug. 3 to 14. Feminists in the Berlin area have gathered for various rallies, exhibitions, and other events to remember Aug. 3, the date of the femicide against the Yazidis, and Aug. 14, the day of global commemoration of the comfort women. This year, cries to “stop wartime sexual violence and femicide” rang out once again on Aug. 3 and 14 in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of German unification. Nizian [sp.?], a member of the Yazidi Women’s Council, explained “The same kind of femicide that happened during the war in the Asia-Pacific region and in Iraq on Aug. 3, 2014, is happening now all around the world.”

The annual meeting of the Yazidi Women’s Council on Aug. 3. (Chae Hye-won)

“We will continue joining forces to oppose violence against women,” she said.

The messages of opposition to sexual violence that have been ringing out in Berlin every August will not stop until the Japanese government has offered a sincere apology – or until the issue of wartime sexual violence is a thing of the past all around the world. Germany may have recorded May 8, 1945, as the end of its war, but the war for us is not yet over. Without an official apology, compensation according to the law, and punishment of war criminals, there is no end to the war.

By Chae Hye-won, feminist writer in Berlin

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