Why “Comfort Women” Advocacy Matters Today

KAN-WIN’s “Comfort Women” Advocacy Team works to educate and mobilize local communities in the movement for justice for survivors of the Japanese military’s sexual slavery system. “Comfort women” was a euphemism for the hundreds of thousands of girls and women across Asia and the Pacific Islands who were forced or deceived into military sexual slavery by Japan in the years leading up and during World War II. Since the early 1990s, survivors and their supporters have fought for a holistic vision of accountability and acknowledgement from the Japanese government. Their activism has become an intergenerational, global movement that inspires all of us to join the work of remembrance and justice.

This interactive workshop will provide the historical and political context of the Japanese military’s sexual slavery system and the global social movement, while highlighting KAN-WIN’s efforts in continuing the survivors’ movement. Participants will also have an opportunity to engage in an art activity, which only requires paper and pen. As a survivor advocacy organization in Chicagoland, KAN-WIN takes inspiration from the survivor-leaders of the “comfort women” movement and joins their collective work towards a world free from gender-based discrimination, oppression, and violence.