By Elisa Gahng and - -
OAKLAND, May 1 2005 (IPS)

Surviving Korean \”comfort women\”, forced to serve as sex slaves to Japanese military officers during WWII, have waited over half a century for an apology from the Japanese government, and with mounting international pressure, they just may get one, writes Elisa Gahng, a senior at the University of California at Berkeley and intern with the Women of Colour Resource Centre in Oakland, CA. In this article, Gahng writes that these women, now aged 65 to 80, were among 200,000 young women kidnapped from Korea\’s poorest regions. In three years, the average comfort woman was raped 7,500 times and some by as many as 30 military officers a day. Their quest for justice began in 1991 when a group of Korean grandmothers publicly told their tragic stories and filed a class action law suit against the Japanese government demanding reparations. Japan\’s government still refuses to assume responsibility and even denies the existence of comfort stations. But growing global pressure may turn the tide. Multiple inter- governmental agencies, such as the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), have urged the Japanese government to make an official apology and assume responsibility.

Surviving Korean “comfort women”, forced to serve as sex slaves to Japanese military officers during WWII, have waited over half a century for an apology from the Japanese government, and with international pressure mounting, they just may get one.

These women, now aged 65 to 80, were among 200,000 young women kidnapped from the poorest regions of Korea. Kept in rooms just large enough to fit a mat, in three years the average comfort woman was raped 7,500 times, and some were raped by as many as 30 military officers a day. After all that they have endured –including beatings and knife slashings– and all they continue to endure –such as sexually transmitted diseases, psychological trauma, and societal and familial estrangement– these women may get to taste justice in their lifetime.

They are not asking for much. They want a formal apology, reparations, and a revision in Japanese history books to include an admission of this painful truth so that future generations will learn from the past.

Their quest for justice began in 1991 when a group of Korean grandmothers led by Kim Hak Sun (1923-1997) finally broke their silence and publicly told their tragic stories. Together, they filed a class action law suit against the Japanese government demanding reparations for the human rights violations committed by the Japanese during its occupation of Korea. Without fail for years and years, rain, snow, or shine, these grandmothers have protested every Wednesday in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul. Yet the Japanese government is still refusing to assume responsibility and even denies the existence of comfort stations.

The Japanese government may have been able to drown out the demands of these aging grannies, but with global pressure building in their favour, the tide may be turning. Multiple intergovernmental agencies, such as the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), after extensive investigations have urged the Japanese government to make an official apology and assume responsibility.

Even South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun has joined this growing global chorus. He declared in 2003, “If Japan is angered by North Korea’s kidnapping of its citizens,” the government should pay reparations to “the thousands of Koreans forced into labour or sexual slavery for its wartime army”. This was a major break for the South Korean government, which had ignored claims by the comfort women in order to preserve diplomatic relations with Japan and to bury this shameful chapter in Korean history.

Now comfort women from Taiwan, Philippines, and Europe have filed an official claim at the United Nations, together with Korean comfort women, against the Japanese government. Even Eve Ensler, the famous author of The Vagina Monologues, announced this month that she is launching a global campaign on behalf of the comfort women.

All that remains is for the Japanese government to admit their responsibility. Some speculate that the government is waiting for the last comfort woman to die in hopes that the movement will perish along with them. What the Japanese government does not realise is that these courageous grandmothers have moved a world from silence to resistance. The movement is now too large for the Japanese government to simply wait it out. The issue can no longer be ignored.

The global consensus is in, and Japan should do what is right and return to these aging grandmothers what its government took away so many years ago: their dignity. Indeed, 50 years is far too long. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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By Elisa Gahng and - -
NEW YORK, Mar 1 2003 (IPS)

World Water Day — celebrated each year on 22 March — provides us with an opportunity to recognise the centrality of water to our daily lives, to poverty reduction, to our environment, and to the sustainable development of nations, writes Sir Richard Jolly, chair of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). In this article for IPS, Jolly writes that top-down, supply-driven approaches to provide water and sanitation services have not worked, while treating water as a free good to be delivered weakens good water management including cost recovery and water conservation. Present levels of international aid going to water, sanitation, and hygiene are estimated at about five billion dollars per year. Yet Third World governments are spending roughly the same again. The author calls for a doubling of this level of investment and raising the share of national and international resources going to services in slums and urban shanty-towns and in rural areas. Better water, sanitation, and hygiene were and are the basis of better health in the industrialised nations. Without them, no amount of drugs, doctors, or hospitals will lift public health onto an equivalent level in the developing world.

World Water Day — celebrated each year on 22 March — provides us with an opportunity to recognise the centrality and importance of water to our daily lives, to poverty reduction, to our environment, and to the sustainable development of nations.

It is timely and appropriate that during Water Year 2003 we reflect on the vital importance of water and sanitation to the billions of those who are still without access to these basic human rights and services to which everyone is entitled.

Six months after the Sustainable Development Summit in Johannesburg, which agreed to set the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water and sanitation –to halve the proportion of people without access by 2015– the international community gathers in Kyoto to discuss ways of achieving these goals. How have we learned from past experiences and what are the lessons gleaned from the International Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981-90)?

In a new and provocative briefing called ”Kyoto — the agenda has changed”, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council reminds us of some mistakes that led us to the dire situation faced by over three billion people in the developing world today:

– Top-down, supply-driven approaches to provide water and sanitation services have not worked.

– Promises and expectations of ” free water” have failed to deliver. In most cases, free service has meant no service. If water is treated as a free good to be delivered then good water management including cost recovery, water conservation and techniques is likely to be weakened

– Giving priority to water supply over sanitation and to sanitation over hygiene has not been effective. The neglect of hygiene –keeping faecal matter away from hands and food and from water itself when it is stored in the home –has been a major cause of infection and diseases, resulting in some 6,000 deaths per day, mostly children.

– Splitting water, sanitation, and hygiene into separate priorities and activities has been a fundamental mistake.

– Blaming under-achievement on such factors as water shortage, lack of funds, rapid population growth, and urbanisation has led to confusion. There is little or no correlation between any of these with the scale and severity of water, sanitation and hygiene problems.

– The tendency to assume that water and sanitation facilities shared by very large numbers of people will bring dramatic benefits.

Present levels of international aid going to water, sanitation, and hygiene are estimated at about five billion dollars per year. Yet Third World governments are spending roughly the same again. It is our opinion that to reach the ” WASH ” goals of halving the proportion of people without access to safe water and sanitation will require at least a doubling of this level of investment. Above all, we need to raise the share of national and international resources going to services in slums and urban shanty-towns and in rural areas.

But how can we raise the profile of hygiene, the neglected third element in the great public health triad, whose other components are water and sanitation? As part of its WASH campaign, WSSCC urges all individuals and communities to promote the ”Hygiene Code” as part of the information environment in which all communities live and children grow up.

The Code, backed by the UN family of agencies, presents a massive challenge that can be met through social mobilisation and communications. Schools and health facilities should become learning and demonstration centres — this is why UNICEF and the WSSCC are launching a new ”WASH in Schools” campaign to promote hygiene education and safe water and sanitation in primary schools, with separate toilets for girls and boys.

What we need are new and imaginative ways to alleviate poverty and improve the health and well-being of the less fortunate among us. The international community should respond to the following challenges:

– How can integrated water resources management (IWRM) incorporate the new sanitation imperative? Good water management is threatened almost everywhere by faecal pollution. But rapid progress towards a new sanitation goal will not be possible unless those responsible for water management make a major contribution. How can IWRM contribute to people-centred household technologies that can help meet their water and sanitation needs?

– How can IWRM serve the needs of low-income groups? How can the rights of the poor to an equitable share of water resources be guaranteed? How can IWRM also serve the needs of agriculture and industry while combating poverty, improving health and productivity, preventing further degradation of the environment?

– What must be done to accelerate progress to the MDGs for Water and Sanitation especially in sub-Saharan Africa and in other regions not yet on track to halving the proportions of people without access by 2015?

The WSSCC and its partners do not underestimate the difficulties that lie ahead. But what is at stake here is not just ‘one issue among many’ but a renewed attempt to achieve the greatest of all public health breakthroughs: better water, sanitation, and hygiene were and are the basis of better health in the industrialised nations. Without them, no amount of drugs, doctors, or hospitals will lift public health onto an equivalent level in the developing world. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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