Surviving Chongshindae Urge Canadian MPs to Support Motion 291

The history of the Chongshindae continues to be a struggle. I recently received this through a friend who has asked everyone to support the Sharing House initiative. The Sharing House is a historic site as well a place that houses survivors of Japanese militarized prostitution of approximately 200,000 women in which it's estimated that 80% were Korean. Japan's continued denial of these atrocities are furthered in which women/children that were trafficked into the Japanese military camps were labeled as "military supplies" an attempt to invisibilize this history.

Below is the petition and two articles.

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Please help urge your friends to sign the petition to tell the Canadian MPs to support Motion 291 which reads:"That, in the opinion of the House, the government should urge the Prime Minister and the Parliament of Japan to: (a) pass a resolution in the Dietto formally apologize to the women who were coerced into military sexualslavery during the Second World War and were euphemized as "comfort women"by the Japanese Imperial Army; and (b) to provide just and honorable compensation to these victims."We need to gather 50,000 signatures to be presented to the Canadian MPs for their action.

< http://www.alpha-toronto.org/petition>Click here to tell Your MPs to vote YES to "Comfort Women" Motion 291Please help forward this email to 20 friends and encourage them to sign thepetition ASAP. Thank you.Thekla LitPresident of B.C. ALPHA Co-chair of Canada ALPHA(Association for Learning & Preserving the History of WWII in Asia)http://www.alpha-canada.org/

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U.S. Unhappy with Japanese Comfort Women Ad

A source in Washington said on Saturday that the White House and U.S.Congress are displeased by a newspaper ad from 63 Japanese lawmakers that denied the Japanese government and military had a hand in conscripting women from Asian countries as sex slaves for the Imperial Army during World WarII. The source said the Bush administration and Congress are likely to address the full-page ad, which appeared in the Washington Post on Thursday. The White House is expected to express its opposition to the ad's claims that several countries set up brothels during the war to prevent soldiers from raping civilians and that the U.S. requested "comfort stations" from the Japanese government after it occupied Japan in 1945. According to the source, Vice President Dick Cheney, who said on a visit to Japan earlier this year that the historical issue cannot be allowed to disrupt the stability of Northeast Asia, expressed his displeasure with the ad and ordered an investigation into how it was made. The ad is expected to boost the chances that the House will adopt aresolution calling on Japan to apologize to the former sex slaves. Some congressmen are said to be unhappy with the attempt by the Japanese lawmakers to distort historical facts. Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said on Saturday at a fundraising event in Los Angeles that the resolutionwill be brought up at a regular session of the committee next Tuesday. Lantos said he expected the resolution to pass by a majority.

( englishnews@chosun.com )Copyright (c) 2000 <http://www.chosun.com/homepage/html/index_e.html > The Chosun Ilbo & Digital Chosun Ilbo All rights reserved.

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Japanese denial angers 'comfort woman'
June 15, 2007 - 7:44PM

An Australian woman forced into sex slavery in World War II says she's trembling with anger at a Japanese government advertisement denying the war-time atrocities. Adelaide resident Jan Ruff-O'Herne says she has lost all respect for the Japanese government after the advertisement appeared in the Washington Post newspaper. The ad, signed by 44 members of Japan's parliament, seeks to share "the truth with the American people" about the 200,000 "comfort women" who were driven into brothels during WWII. "No historical document has ever been found by historians or research organisations that positively demonstrates that women were forced against their will into prostitution by the Japanese army," the ad said under the title, in bold letters, "THE FACTS". Ms Ruff-O'Herne said she was appalled by the advertisement."My esteem for the Japanese government has completely gone down the drain," she said. "It's absolutely appalling, I'm trembling with anger. I just can't believe it, I am so angry that after all these years and so much proof they could do that."

The 84-year-old Adelaide woman travelled to Washington DC in February tospeak before a US House of Representatives hearing on Protecting the HumanRights of "comfort women".
"I myself went to Washington, would I do that at my age if it wasn't true -it is true, we were forced," she said.

"What evidence can they produce that we have not been forced? They haven't got any evidence because we were forced. They must be absolutely crazy, Japan is not owning up to their historicalresponsibilities.Comfort women are never going to give up, we want Japan to apologise and acknowledge the war crimes they committed. I have forgiven them for what they did to me, but I can never forget. I was put on a truck and driven away, torn away from my family and put in abrothel to be raped day and night."

A lobby group, Friends of Comfort Women in Australia, was also angered by the advertisement. "Numerous testimonies by survivors clearly identify the "comfort women"system as that of military sexual slavery from which they never sought nor awarded any payment," the group said in a statement to AAP. The ad was signed by professors, journalists, political commentators and 29 members of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, 13 from the Democratic Party of Japan and two independents.

"The ianfu (comfort women) who were embedded with the Japanese army were not, as is commonly reported, 'sex slaves'," the ad said. "They were working under a system of licensed prostitution that was commonplace around the world at the time," it said, adding many of the womenmade more money than field officers "and even generals". Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sparked controversy in March by saying there was no evidence the imperial army directly coerced thousands of"comfort women" into brothels across Asia during WWII. Abe has since stressed he stands by Japan's landmark 1993 apology to thewomen, and expressed his deep sympathy for the women during a US visit inlate April.

Fairfax Digital Copyright 2007 The Age Company Ltd <http://www.theage.com.au/> .--Sharing House VolunteersContacts:Jyoung-Ah Kim 016-9444-5683Heather Evans 010-9928-8850comfortwomen.wordpress.com