Sajor on WWII comfort women: Speak up against injustice and not wait for 50 years
By Marivir Montebon
New York - Filipino feminist activist Indai Sajor, one of the pioneers of the creation of the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal (WIWCT), said it was high time for her to sit down and finish writing the book on how this trail blazing war crime tribunal on sexual slavery came about.
On a pleasant summer afternoon at her New York apartment, Sajor said that the WIWCT on Japan’s military sexual slavery is an international law landmark initiative that recognized rape and sexual slavery as a crime against humanity.
Sajor: The WIWCT on Japan’s military sexual slavery is an international law landmark initiative by women activists that recognized rape and sexual slavery as a crime against humanity.
“For the first time, rape was finally acknowledged as a war crime,” she said in the podcast Conversations with MM. It took 50 years for the women victims to come out to the open about their sexual slavery during WWII under the Japanese Imperial Army.
“It took that long. We wanted accountability.”
Sajor recalled that the idea of setting up a tribunal was hatched by human rights activist and literature professor Yung Jun Ok (now 100) and sustained by Yayori Matsui (deceased in 2002), a Japanese journalist and activist, and herself, in 1998 in Geneva when they sought the accountability of rape and sexual slavery of the comfort women to the UN Commission on Human Rights.
Filipino comfort women stepping up in their old age. The background is the red house in Bulacan where the women were contained during WWII for the sexual needs of the Japanese Imperial Army during the war.
Yayori Matsui
Sajor said that the WIWCT was a breakthrough initiative. The Nuremberg Trials which tried war crimes in Europe and the Tokyo War Tribunal failed to acknowledge the suffering of women during the war, particularly on rape.
Asked why rape and sexual slavery were not included in the trials, Sajor said the international tribunals were male-dominated and had no gender perspective in hearing the war cases back then. “At that time, women all had to suffer in silence or be shamed if they talked about being raped.”
“Comfort women” in South Korea. (Library of Congress photo)
A few of the aging comfort women in S. Korea, still demanding justice. (From WIWCT website)
The process of demanding for accountability took 10 long arduous years for her group.
Sajor coordinated with the comfort women networks of 10 countries, namely South Korea, North Korea, The Philippines, China, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, East Timor, Malaysia, and the Netherlands. They participated in the Tokyo War Crimes Trial (TWCT).
However, rape and sexual slavery was not identified at the TWCT.
This, according to Sajor, gave them more resolve and determination to hold a war crimes trial to specifically prosecute sexual slavery and rape, thus the creation of the WIWCT. “In the countries colonized by Japan during the war, there was a pattern of sexual slavery. First, their families were massacred in front of them, then the women were abducted, and they were brought in concentration areas.”
In the Philippines, she recalled that her organization, the Lila Pilipina, had publicly called through radio those who have been WWII rape victims to come forward to speak up. It was then that they found Lola (grandma) Rose Henson who was the first face of a brave Filipino comfort woman in the 1990s.
For years, the organizers, together with Japanese lawyers and activists, filed a case at the Tokyo District Court for legal compensation and restitution for war crimes committed against the comfort women but failed in winning the cases of the aging comfort women.
The Japanese government never issued a formal apology to the comfort women who came forward. “We knew we will not win because we filed a case against the Japanese government in Tokyo. But we let the stories of women during the war be heard.”
Despite Japan’s denial, the comfort women campaign earned international recognition and the support of their respective governments, which also leveraged on the sex slavery crime for negotiations on official development aid with Japan.
A private fund was created to help the comfort women in Japan wherein they could avail of $20,000 for their legal action. “But we didn’t like that. It was a token. What we wanted was accountability,” recalled Sajor.
Lola Rosa Henson (Photo grab from Facebook)
“We created the WIWCT because we don’t need permission to talk about the injustice that happened during the war. For the first time, rape was acknowledged as a war crime as pushed by WIWCT.”
The WIWCT has a similar structure to the International Criminal Court. It involved judges, lawyers, prosecutors, international law experts, academics, activists and the comfort women that brought the issue on sexual slavery as a war crime.
Local historians in the Philippines looked at the sexual slavery of women in Asia during WWII as one of the difficult times a woman could live or undergo. The victims silently suffered after the war and no one may likely have undergone psychological help.
“When I talked to our lolas, although they were already old, they described what happened to them during the war as if it was only yesterday,” said Sajor.
According to Sajor, her upcoming book, which will be both anecdotal and legalese, will be useful material for future war crime trials especially now that many countries are in armed conflicts.
Sajor said that women need not wait for 50 years to break the silence and be acknowledged for their suffering. “I’d like to emphasize too that behind this movement, there were many women and men activists who ensured that governments were made accountable.” #
