THE STRUGGLE OF MEMORY AGAINST FORGETTING-

"Security Council
Resolution 1325 – For the first time the global community had a hard
look at the plight of women during armed conflict. Not only as victims
but as potential participants in the peace process. Their presence would
mainstream the gender perspective and convey the humanitarian
dimensions. Bringing this to the forefront at a parallel event at CSW-59
was an emotive film.

 

“The Song of the Reed is a melody as soft
and fleeting as the mountain breeze, but with a message as strong as a
blowing storm”. Kang Shu-hua’s narrative threw up several questions. In
an armed conflict, historically women are part of the loot for the
victor, or women are abused denigrated by the perpetrating country, to
send a message of subjugation. History has been witness to this time
and again. But what happens when there is a denial of history, when
documents, places, official records and the women themselves, are
negated?

 

The Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation (TWRF), is an NGO that
began work to bring assistance to victims of gender-specific violence.
Since 1992, it began assisting a group of women that were survivors of
sexual atrocities by the Japanese military. A large number of women
from Taiwan and other Asia –Pacific countries had survived the sexual
abuse by the army, but no one talked of it. In the early 1990s a Korean
survivor Kim Hakson, testified against the systematic sexual slavery
system. She was the first comfort woman and this gave tremendous boost
to survivors in other countries. These comfort women hither to led a
life of shame, rejection by their families, mental and physically agony
battling the demons of their past in solitude. TWFR identified 58 of
these survivors, twenty were alive then. TWRF lobbied for their
compensation, set up hot lines to take calls from victims, their
families, gave medical and counseling services to them. It was through
their unstinting efforts that the War Tribunals were set up to seek
reprisal and apology from the Japanese government. The Tribunals
proceedings were documented and shown as a separate film as part of the
event.

What is applaudable is that an NGO was able to take up an
issue that has been buried, ignored and denied by governments. They
focused on the few surviving comfort women in Taiwan and urged their
government to preserve the legacy. It is through their efforts that all
822 records available have been digitized and put in the National
Taiwanese University. Again they have managed to get the fact of the
comfort women incorporated into the high school history text books.
Exhibitions, museum events highlighted the existence of an almost
forgotten piece pf history. The research done by dedicated women
resulted in a book and bringing the story of the comfort women to every
possible international forum.

The film made in 2010 is about the
coming out of these Ah-ma (grandmothers). The then surviving six ah-mas
reveal their stories, the isolation and the mental agony they have
lived with. TWRF’s excellent Pyscho-therapy workshops to help the aging
women come to terms with their past is perhaps the most touching part of
the film. For example the ah-mas are encouraged to draw. All of them
drew themselves as young pretty girls, perhaps for them their lives had
stopped there. They are in denial about the rest. The carefully designed
workshops lead the women to reconcile with the perpetrators with the
horrors of being abused (up to 60 times a day) and being held captive
for more than a thousand days. The scars were deep and un-healing. TWRF
though the workshops brought a smile a reconciliation for them. The fun
things, the bonding and the support they got from the public and
government becomes sustenance they carry with them to their graves.

TWRF
not only asks for recognition of the comfort women, but brings the
issue of human rights to the forefront. It is seventy years ago since
the war ended but today in the 21st century women are the worst
sufferers in war torn situations be it Yugoslavia, Afghanistan or Syria.
Kang Shu-hua the producer says that the gender issue here hasn’t
touched the international community with as severity as it needs to. “By
telling the truth today we are passing on the legacy to the future
generations, not to re-enforce enmity, but look at the past with a
different mindset –one of reconciliation.”

 

Nisha Ghosh

Friendship Link Coordinator.

SI Pune Metro East.