Written by Paek Sun-haeng, Team Manager, The Museum of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, an affiliate organization of the Daegu Citizen Forum for Halmuni

Film researcher Hwang Miyojo sheds light on the documentary film “The Silence” produced by female director Park Su-nam, a second-generation Korean-Japanese. Director Park documented the struggle of Lee Ok-sun, who demanded that the Japanese government apologize and provide compensation, together with 14 colleagues.

The Japanese military “comfort women” have been a subject of transnational feminism that criticizes the patriarchy of war and talks about peace and a symbol connected to the unfinished issue, sexual violence against women.

This achievement of historical research will serve as a basis for listening to testimonies in depth beyond the narrow standard of “fact verification.”

In some way or another, testimony literature must provide its own answer to the question of what to represent and how. So what was the answer found by Kim Soom's novel "One Left" (Hyundae Munhak, 2016)?

She deals with the issues of how the victimization of women in the post-colonial Korean society is represented, what type of gaze operates here, and what the gaze ultimately strives to see.

Kim Soon-ak was referred to by countless names throughout her life: As we can guess from her multiple names, her life was full of twists and turns we didn’t know or didn’t want to know about.  

Rose Camastro-Pritchett’s “Comfort Women” project uses art to honor the dignity and strength of survivors of wartime sexual violence. Inspired by her research and personal experiences, she creates intimate, respectful works that connect historical trauma to ongoing conversations about gender-based violence today.

the blanks in written language can connect us to the past more powerfully than the original voice, depending on how we relate to the testimonies.