SOUTH KOREA – Empire, Feminism, and Sexual Slavery During WW2

<p>This week, Bec and Cam deep dive on a little known crime in the Asia Pacific during WW2 – The Comfort Women. These were the 50,000-200,000 young women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery in service of the Japanese Empire. They suffered humiliating and dehumanising experienced in euphemistically-named ‘Comfort Stations’ that stayed with them for the rest of their lives. </p><p>Activism against Japan over the Comfort Women issue is high-profile and contentious in South Korea, and in this episode we also discuss whether it is motivated primarily by feminism or nationalism. </p><p><br></p><p>For those approaching this episode with care, please refer to the contents below, including trigger warnings (with time stamps) about particularly distressing topics. </p><p>Section 1</p><ul><li>Who were the comfort women?</li><li>What happened to them (includes more in depth discussion of sexual and physical assault, suicide and domestic violence)? – (08:29 – 15:35)</li><li>How did their story come out?</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Section 2</p><ul><li>The contemporary political situation between Japan and South Korea </li><li>How the Comfort Women issue developed alongside this context </li><li>Discussing Park Yu-Ha’s attempted censure over her academic work on the Comfort Women </li><li>Is the comfort women issue activism in South Korea a question of feminism or nationalism?</li><li>The future of the Comfort Women issue and of relations between South Korea and Japan  </li></ul><p><br></p><p>Books referenced in this epsode: </p><ul><li><em>Comfort Women of the Japanese Empire: Colonial Rule and Battle over Memory</em>, by Park Yu-Ha (2024 in English) </li><li><em>Jugun Ianfu</em> (<em>Military Comfort Women</em>), by Senda Kakou (1973)</li></ul>