Student participants on the 1009th Wednesday Demonstration in Seoul, South Korea, February 15, 2012. JoonYoung Kim/Flickr. Some rights reserved.
On Wednesday 6th January 2016, the 24th year anniversary of the weekly rally in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul by the Korean victim-survivors of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery, solidarity actions were held at various locations in Canada, Germany, Japan, South Korea, UK and the USA. This was in response to a call from the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, which has organised and supported these rallies for many years. The solidarity protests were coordinated as a gesture of disapproval towards the Korea-Japan Agreement on the issue of Japan’s military sexual slavery (‘comfort women’) that was announced on 28th December 2015. In London, a dozen people turned up to join the protest in front of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea lead by the Korean community in London asking the Korean government to review the agreement and to actively support the women seeking for justice.
The agreement was widely reported as ‘landmark’ and ‘breakthrough’ and was (initially) welcomed by many around the world who have been waiting for this long-lasting dispute between Japan and South Korea (as well as other Asian countries) to be finally and successfully resolved. However, as soon as the agreement was announced, survivor-activists and activist organisations in South Korea and Japan raised concerns and expressed frustration that this agreement is not only far from being a ‘breakthrough’, but in fact actually ignores all the 25 year efforts of the redress movement seeking justice for these women. The Korean Council issued a statement on 28th December claiming that this agreement is merely ‘a diplomatic collusion which betrays the demands from all’. The Japan Nationwide Action for Resolution of the Japan’s Military ‘Comfort Women’ Issue, an umbrella organisation of diverse groups and individuals that support victim-survivors of ‘comfort women’ system, also published its comments on the following day stating that ‘an “agreement” without the victim is no “solution”. The Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace in Tokyo also circulated a similar statement on 31st December. The initial media coverage of the agreement, presenting this as a landmark, indeed often contained inaccuracies and misinformation, and fell short of appropriately identifying its drawbacks. This clearly demonstrates how, despite all feminist efforts, both political negotiations and the analysis and reporting of them still fail to pay enough attention to gender perspectives. At the same time, it also clearly illuminated how the ‘comfort women’ issue and its complexity is not widely understood beyond feminist and other citizen groups and individuals that have been interested in the redress movement.
