NEW YORK -- V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls, is putting the "comfort women's" crusade for reparations in its spotlight for 2006. As part of the activities, in the summer of 2006 the Global Campaign will include celebrity benefit performances of "The Vagina Monologues" in Seoul and Tokyo, with the voices of comfort women in a monologue written by playwright and V-Day founder Eve Ensler. The organization's goal is to draw international attention and support to what many consider one of the most serious crimes against women in the 20th century.
Japan's continuing refusal to reach an agreement with the former "comfort women" has been sharply criticized by Amnesty International. In a report issued at the end of 2005 titled "Still Waiting After 60 Years: Justice for Survivors of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery System," this organization calls on the Japanese government to accept full responsibility for crimes committed against women condemned to sexual slavery by their Japanese recruiters. These so-called comfort women were recruited from several countries, mainly Korea, during World War II, and forced to serve as sexual slaves for the Japanese soldiers.
Among the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 women recruited from different countries, 80 to 90 percent were from Korea. Girls as young as 11 were forced to serve between 5 and 40 soldiers a day, and almost 100 soldiers on weekends. Those who resisted were often beaten, burned or wounded. During the Japanese retreat many were left to starve or were executed to eliminate any trace of the atrocities they were subjected to by the Japanese military.