KAVC H. RES. 759 Support Initiative

THE KOREAN AMERICAN VOTERS�� COUNCIL & HR-759

The Korean American Voters’ Council of NY/NJ (KAVC) has launched its H. Res. 759 Support Initiative and will not stop until H. Res. 759 is passed and the Government of Japan formally acknowledges and accepts responsibility for its sexual enslavement of young women, known to the world as ��comfort women,�� during its colonial occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II, and for other purposes.

KAVC has already contacted all NY and NJ congressional district leaders, including each states�� two respective senators, as well as the seven major foreign and international relations committees and their respective chairpersons in Washington for their support of HR-759.

H. RES. 759 BACKGROUND & OVERVIEW

H. RES. 759 has great significance for the Korean American community as well as the Asian community at large, specifically women as a whole. During World War II, the Japanese military forced hundreds of thousands of women to serve as sexual slaves. Euphemistically known as ��comfort women,�� they were predominantly Korean women and girls abducted from their homes and forced to serve Japanese soldiers. This government-sanctioned program created untold numbers of comfort stations or military brothels throughout Japanese-occupied territories in the Pacific Rim.

The comfort women were girls as young as 13 years of age or women separated from their own children who were either abducted from their homes or lured into sexual servitude under false pretenses. Many comfort women were eventually killed or forced to commit suicide upon cessation of hostilities and historians conclude that as many as 200,000 women were enslaved but very few survive today.

For decades after the war, the Government of Japan did not fully disclose these war crimes during negotiations for reparations with former enemies and colonial states and further it did not officially acknowledge the crimes until 1994, when their position changed. The Government of Japan admitted that ��the then Japanese military was directly or indirectly involved in the establishment and management of comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women [and] that this was an act that severely injured the honor and dignity of many women.�� Stripped of their dignity, robbed of their honor, most of them were forced to live their lives carrying those horrific experiences with them covered under a veil of shame.

THE KOREAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY & H. RES. 759

Every Korean American has relatives who have been not only affected by the atrocious hate crimes of Japan but have been direct victims of the ��comfort woman�� war crimes. Therefore, we cannot just stand by and watch as the Government of Japan does everything in its power to erase this atrocity from the annals of history. Even as you are reading this, Japanese lobbyists are fighting to cover up their shameful past and the war crimes committed against Korea. We should not stand idly by as the memories of our beloved relatives and tarnished once more by the Japanese as they try to rewrite history in their own image.
* kavc님에 의해서 게시물 이동되었습니다 (2008-07-29 05:51)