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Video: Clashing with Riot Police while making a Stand for Human Rights10th December 2008 I attended the weekly demonstration outside the Japanese embassy on the 10th of December (Human Rights Day) to protest along side former "comfort women". Who or what are the "comfort women"? Well, firstly "comfort women" is a terrible description, but it is one that most people use so we are stuck with. "Comfort women" describe the women that were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during WWII. "Sexual Slave" would be a far better description as serving up to forty men a day is by no means comfortable for the women. It is hard to know the exact numbers, but most scholars agree it is somewhere between 50 and 200 thousand, mostly from Korean, Taiwan and the Philippines and anywhere else the Japanese army happen to be. Some other foreigners and I organised a peaceful protest that would continue after the halmoni (respectful term for grandmother) had left. The symbolism was great as one of the problems we face with this issue is that these ladies are dying and they are very worried that no one will pick up the fight. Unfortunately the Japanese Embassy really didn't like what we were doing and called in the Riot Police to break us up. Was a little ironic that the Korean Riot Police wanted to break up a bunch of foreigners peacefully protesting human rights violations inflicted on Korean people on Human Rights day.
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2005, 2006 and 2007 Malcolm Trevena. |
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