The Silenced Memories of Trauma: Japanese “Comfort Women”

The place of surviving Japanese so-called “comfort women” within transnational activism for redress remains ambiguous. Even though participants in the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery in 2000 recognized them as victims alongside women of other nationalities, many activists in Korea and other countries invaded by Japan during the war, as well as in Japan itself, have not included Japanese survivors in their calls for recognition and justice. Many of Japanese women being indentured prostitutes prior to becoming so-called “comfort women” were excluded from victimhood status, in addition to the way that as Japanese nationals themselves, they were seen as implicated in Japanese imperialism. The implication of Japanese women in the system of imperialism does not, however, mean that Japanese women working within this system did not suffer similarly to other so-called “comfort women”.

Examining written/oral life stories of some Japanese survivors along with interviews with journalists who interviewed them, I will demonstrate how by bringing Japanese “comfort women” into greater focus we might better understand the collusion between the patriarchal state and nation in the silencing of the memories of trauma inflicted by Japanese survivors. Given many other silenced voices of non-Japanese survivors who were also civilian prostitutes before becoming “comfort women,” I argue for greater inclusion of Japanese women survivors within the movement for transnational justice.