![\"7\/23\/14](\"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_1099-Red.jpg\")
<\/a>Photo caption:\u00a0 7\/23\/14 Comfort Women Demonstration in Seoul<\/p><\/div>\n
(To get a larger-size photo, just click on the photo.)<\/p>\n
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- September 1995:\u00a0 The United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, when the issue of sex slaves was a major issue of discussion as a violation of women’s human rights.\u00a0 It was also here that Japanese lawyers and Chinese lawyers first established a collaboration to work together on lawsuits in Japanese courts on sex slaves and slave laborers.\u00a0 This collaboration has continued for 20 years to today.<\/li>\n
- Last half of 2007:\u00a0 A series of resolutions was passed by the highest legislative bodies of several Western countries criticizing the Japanese government for not acknowledging and apologizing on the issue of sex slaves from WWII.\u00a0 These resolutions include those passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, the Canadian Parliament, the Lower House of the Dutch Parliament, and the European Parliament. [2]<\/li>\n
- October 23, 2010:\u00a0 The small town of Palisades Park (with a population of about 20,000 people and a large number of Korean Americans) dedicated a memorial plaque in front of its township library to remember and recognize the 200,000+ comfort women for the sufferings that they endured, and to press the Japanese government to officially acknowledge and apologize for the inhumane atrocity that the Japanese Imperial Army inflicted on these innocent victims.\u00a0 This was the first U.S. memorial to comfort women. Because the Japanese government, including the Consul General of New York City, visited the Palisades Park\u2019s mayor and other city leaders offering ways Japan can help Palisades Park on the condition that the memorial plaque be removed, an offer that was refused.\u00a0 As a result, this memorial plaque has generated a lot of publicity, including an article<\/a> in the New York Times, and resulted in the public becoming more aware of the issue of comfort women and that Japan has continued to deny her role in such atrocity during WWII.\u00a0 Similar memorial plaques are now being dedicated in other parts of the U.S. and the world, resulting in more awareness and publicity on this issue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Palisades](\"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/IMG_8479-Crop-Ed-300x240.jpg\")
<\/a>Photo caption:\u00a0 Palisades Park Comfort Women Memorial Plaque<\/p><\/div>\n
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- July 30, 2013:\u00a0 The city of Glendale, CA put up a Comfort Women Memorial Statue.\u00a0 The Japanese government in collaboration with some local Japanese-American residents and organizations sued the city of Glendale that it has no jurisdiction putting up such a statue, but they lost the law suit.<\/li>\n
- Last 20-25 years:\u00a0 A lot of historical research has been done to gather more data on comfort women by historians and researchers in many parts of the world.\u00a0 An important example is the work headed by the husband and wife team of Professor Su Zhi Liang and Professor Chen Lifei and their colleagues at the Research Center on Chinese “Comfort Women” at Shanghai Normal University.\u00a0 They have gathered a large amount of irrefutable evidence of the existence of comfort women and comfort stations in many parts of China.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, their research shows that the normally quoted number of 200,000 comfort women did not include many Chinese comfort women.\u00a0 When the Chinese comfort women are properly included, the number of comfort women is actually close to 400,000.<\/li>\n
- September 22, 2015:\u00a0 The resolution passed by the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco discussed at the beginning of this article is just the latest milestone.\u00a0 Similar to Glendale, this resolution also faced challenge by the Japanese government working with some local Japanese-American residents and organizations.\u00a0 The vote was unanimously passed thanks partially to the presence of Yong Soo Lee, a former comfort woman, and the support from various community activists, like former California judges Lillian Sing and Julie Tang who thought of setting up such a memorial 18 years ago after they read Iris Chang’s classic book\u00a0The Rape of Nanking:\u00a0 The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II<\/em> when it came out in 1997. .<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The resolution to establish a comfort women memorial in San Francisco is just the latest example of people in many parts of the world who feel strongly that it is time to right this great injustice.\u00a0 Furthermore, human trafficking of sex slaves is still happening in many parts of the world, providing more impetus to right this injustice.\u00a0 We hope that this will be accomplished while some of the former comfort women are still alive.<\/p>\n
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[1] A testimony of Ms Kim Koon-ja in front of the U.S. Congress on February 15, 2007 can be found in the document<\/a> “Protecting the Human Rights of Comfort Women, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Asia, the Facific, and the Global Environment of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives” (pp. 30-36).<\/p>\n