New Jersey Summer Internship Project: Remembering the Comfort Women

The Korean American Voters’ Council Summer Internship program was created in an effort to help educate and mold the up and coming youth into the future leaders of tomorrow. But to become a good leader they must first understand the needs and wants of the community, as well as learn about the history, good and bad.

For this year’s main summer internship project for New Jersey, interns have been charged with creating a small, but culturally and politically significant memorial to the victims and survivors of the Comfort Woman war crimes during World War II. A plaque mounted on a large stone will  be used to help educate the public about those crimes against humanity and against women, that these crimes do not have to be repeated.

The New Jersey interns visited Hackensack, where there are already four memorials set up for other tragedies (Irish Famine, African American rights, Holocaust, Armenian Massacre) to get ideas about how to go about organizing an effort for the comfort woman plaque.