The plight of comfort women: A reminder

Today I woke up to a bizarre news item: the bronze statue of a comfort woman went missing last week and the organization that commissioned the work is now thinking about suing the sculptor for estafa.

A little context: sometime in 2017, the Tulay Foundation commissioned artist Jonas Roces to create a seven-foot statue of a woman in a blindfold to commemorate the Filipinas forced into sexual slavery as comfort women throughout the Japanese Occupation during World War II. It was installed along Roxas Boulevard in late 2017, prompting loud protest from the Japanese Embassy in Manila. The statue was removed in April 2018 to make way for roadwork and should have been installed in Baclaran Church thereafter, but apparently the statue never made its way to the church.

I am curious about what happened to the statue, of course, but the focus of this column will not be to deduce its whereabouts. Rather, I would like to delve into why the statue is important, and why it is important that we as a nation never forget what it represents. This is very personal to me, as I was the lawyer of Malaya Lolas, an organization of surviving comfort women.

There are plenty of history books that talk about what many women suffered as comfort women here in the Philippines and elsewhere, notably in China and South Korea. My stomach still turns every time I think of the horrors that were wrought by the Japanese forces on these women during the Occupation. Only a handful of these women live today, still waiting for justice.

It is true that Japan paid reparations after the war — blanket sums of money and projects given to the Philippine government in acknowledgment of its wrongful acts. It should be noted, however, that Japan has never formally acknowledged the systematic enslavement and rape of women in occupied territories as part of its wrongful acts. Japan has acknowledged that the system of comfort women existed, but disclaimed responsibility.

The women who personally suffered never received a cent of the money paid. The only support they did receive over the years came from sporadic, private initiatives of contrite Japanese citizens. And all the while, the Philippine government has refused to espouse their claims, saying that the wartime reparations to the Philippines as a whole are enough.

Contrast this to the attitudes of China and South Korea, who have demanded that the women abused be personally compensated. A case is currently being tried in South Korea to determine the extent of compensation that the Japanese government should pay to the comfort women. I have gone to court for our comfort women hoping to bring about similar results, but our efforts on their behalf were not successful despite the bitter fight. (You’re welcome to look up the Vinuya case for more detail.)

I try to temper my frustration and disappointment by reminding myself that it isn’t that the Philippines is particularly uncaring and backwards when it comes to fighting for our women. Just last week the United Nations Committee against Torture (UNCAT) found the Bosnian government liable for failing to meet its obligations to a victim of sexual violence; Bosnia and Herzegovina was ordered to pay compensation, issue an official apology, and provide the victim with immediate free medical and psychological care. The UNCAT decision is considered a landmark decision precisely because until it came along, governments seemed split on the idea of being responsible for women brutalized during conflict specifically as a method of warfare. Still depressing, but I remain hopeful that this means that more governments will wake up to how they have been failing their women.

In short, that missing bronze statue is more than just the P1 million it allegedly costs. It embodies a terrible legacy and an ongoing injustice still awaiting redress.