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Aug.
29, 1910:
Imperial Japan colonizes Chosun and annexes
it by force against the will of the Korean people in 1910.
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1920's:
As part of Japan's
imperial policies
after the colonization of Korea, they enslave over 150,000 Korean women
and girls as sexual slaves.
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1931:
Japan invades Manchuria and establishes its first
comfort stations.
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Aug. 15, 1945:
(End of WWII) Following Japan's defeat, the
retreating Japanese military seek to hide evidence of comfort women by
massacring them. Others are deserted and later detained at POW camps.
Some of the women who return home commit suicide and others live in
solitude with their painful past.
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Feb. 20, 1965:
Korean-Japanese Basic Treaty is
concluded.
'...... Japan resolves
compensation matters regarding Korean sufferers by offering the South
Korea financial loan and support according to figures agreed upon, which
will compensate for all acts committed in the Korean Government entirely.' This
provision acted as an excuse for Japanese government to refuse
compensation to the comfort women.
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Nov. 1990:
The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Sexual
Slavery by Japan is formed in South Korea.
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Aug. 1991:
Kim Hak Soon at 67 becomes the first comfort woman to
testify publicly that the Japanese military forced her into sexual
servitude during WWII.
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Oct. 1991:
Victims start lawsuits for the reparations of the war
victims against the Japanese government.
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Nov. 1991:
Yosheida Seuiji, the Japanese labor mobilization
director during WWII, confirms that the Japanese military used the
comfort women through force and deceit.
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Jan.
8, 1992:
The first weekly Wednesday demonstration in front of
the Japanese Embassy in S. Korea.
The first demonstration during the state visit
of Japanese Prime Minister to South Korea. The Korean Council sent open
letter to the Japanese government, which was signed by three
co-representatives, Park Soon Geum, Lee Hyo Cha and Yun Chung Ok. The
letter listed the following six demands:
+ That the Japanese government admits the compulsory drafting of
Korean women as Military Sexual Slavery by Japan.
+ That an official apology will be made for this.
+ That all the atrocities will be fully disclosed.
+ That a memorial will be built for the victims.
+ That the survivors or their bereaved families will be compensated
+ That the facts and truth about Military Sexual Slavery by Japan will be
taught in Japanese history classes so that such inhumanities are not
repeated.
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Jan.13, 1992:
Japanese government releases a
comment that acknowledge the fact that Japanese army was involved in
recruiting comfort women.
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Jul.6, 1992:
Japan publishes a report : 'Results of Investigation into the Question
of 'Military Comfort Women' Originating from the Korean Peninsula'. In
this, Japan acknowledges that the Japanese government was involved in
Comfort women but denies compulsory conscription.
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AUG. 1992:
Japan submits a supplementary
report that approves of kidnapping as a mean of recruiting Comfort women.
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DEC. 1992:
Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues, Inc.
is formed.
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Aug. 1994:
Prime Minister Murayama announces the Japanese
government's first version of the "Private Fund" plan, a
privately funded source to compensate former comfort women. Many think of
this as just an attempt by the Japanese government to bury the past and
avoid the responsibility of legal restitution on a governmental level.
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Jan. 1996:
UN Human Rights Commission
releases Special Commissioner Coomaraswamy's "Report on the
mission to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of
Korea and Japan on the issue of military sexual slavery in wartime",
which officially acknowledges the crimes of the Japanese government.
UN Human Rights Commission rules that the Japanese Imperial Army's
Comfort Women is a violation
of human rights and a distinct infringement on international law. They
demand the Japanese government to compensate for damage done to the state,
punish those responsible, disclose data for public, and revise schoolbooks
etc.
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Mar. 1996:
International Labor
Organization(ILO) Committee's report announces Japanese Imperial Army's
Comfort women problem violates the Treaty Frobidding Coercive Labor.
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Dec. 1996:
The US Justice Department places 16 suspected
Japanese war criminals on a government "watch list" for their
crimes against comfort women and for their involvement with "Unit
731". This prevents these 16 individuals from entering the US.
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Apr. 23, 1998:
1998, Japan's Yamaguchi
Shimonoseki district court acknowledges Japan's state responsibility for the
first time ever that and adjudicated compensation to subsistence Korean
Comfort women who institute a lawsuit. They concluded 'Comfort Women
matter is a thorough discrimination against women and a national
violation of human rights which Japanese constitutional law does not
approve, and also the defendant country neglected their sufferings to
double their agony.' And made the country to compensate for the comfort
women.
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Aug. 10, 1998:
UN human rights commission
adopts Gay McDougal's report "International Legal Approaches
toward the Issue of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery and the Liability of
the Government of Japan" requesting compensation from Japanese
government, and advices Japan to compensate.
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Mar. 1998:
International labor
organization(ILO) advise Japanese government to compensate for sufferers
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Aug. 1999:
The resolution to solve the issues of Military Sexual
Slavery proposed by Japanese American Mike Honda was passed in the
California State Congress and the California State Senate in the United
States.
California State Congress adopts the "Honda
Resolution", which unanimously urges the Japanese government to
issue a formal apology and pay reparations to survivors of the Japanese
Military Sexual Slavery System and the Nanking Massacre.
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2000:
15 former comfort women from Korea and
various other Asian countries sue the Japanese government in the US
courts, seeking unspecified but substantial damages for years of
mistreatment that continue to haunt them in old age. It is filed under
the Alien Tort Claims Act, which gives foreign citizens the right to sue
other foreign citizens for abuses of international law.
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Oct. 4, 2001:
A U.S. federal judge dismissed a
class-action lawsuit filed against Japan by former comfort women who wanted
compensation and an apology for being forced into sexual slavery during
WWII. The judge stated that Japan was not liable in these matters. The
judge also stated that U.S. courts lacked jurisdiction because Japan
still had sovereign immunity from prosecution.
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Mar. 25, 2003:
On March 25th,
in the final appeal case involving Korean Comfort Women victims, the Japanese
Supreme Court overrules an earlier decision to pay disbursing
compensation fee of 9 hundred thousand yen. The “ Simonoseki Case”, the case
in which the Yamaguchi Simonoseki’s district
court first recognizes national
responsibility for the Comfort Women, comes to an end after 5 years, with
the defeat of the ex-comfort women. The plaintiffs pointed out that “Japan
has evaded its duties as a constitutional nation by being deliberately lax
regarding the physical and psychological suffering they had to endure,
beginning with their forced recruitment.” They pointed out numerous times that Japanese
government neglected legislating laws regarding compensation. But the Court
sides with the ruling made by the Hiroshima
higher court which rejected plaintiff side, claiming "Inappropriate
lawful reason for appeal."
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Jan. 17, 2005:
Korean-Japanese
Basic Treaty is disclosed. Korea government
tries to obtain approximately $600
million dollars as “Damage claims” , as
agreed upon in the “Kim-Ohira Memo”. However,
Japanese Government’s antimony is clearly
shown as Japan struggles to avoids this
as fiercely as possible, while obsessing
over the term “ Economic Cooperation Fund”.
This is because the Japanese government
had been maintaining that matters regarding
personal compensation had been completely
resolved through the Japanese Postwar Compensation
Lawsuit of 1965. Related to this matter,
The Japanese representative (Nishiyama),
who participated in the 7th Korean-Japanese
Committee of Claims and Economic Cooperation,
claims that “ Our support is not of duty,
as a compensation would be, but rather on
economic cooperation.” The numerous use
of the word “economic cooperation” clearly
shows that Japan had brushed away all intentions
of compensation. The tension between
the both sides regarding the 2nd clause
of the Claims Agreement - All matter
(regarding personal compensation) has been
resolved-, shows that Japan used the absence
of a negotiating strategy, anxiety for indemnity
to manipulate Koreans into accepting their
terms.
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