Yang Ching-Ja: Seeds of Hope

Abstract

The wartime ‘comfort women’ issue continues to animate large parts of Japan’s contemporary feminist movement, with groups and individuals rallying in support of survivors, against the right-wing reactionaries who attack them, and in pursuit of apology, reparation, and public education. A prominent leader of these efforts in Japan is Yang Ching-Ja, and her testimony forms the basis of this chapter’s discussion of contemporary thinking and campaigning approaches to the history of Japanese military sexual slavery. The chapter canvasses the evolution in Yang’s approach to the ‘comfort women’ issue from the early 1990s, and philosophical outlook on what motivates acts of political solidarity with these victims. This evolution brought about Yang’s eventual co-founding of the organisation Kibōtane, and the chapter describes the activities of this organisation in light of Yang’s conflicting views of feminism and shifts occurring in women’s identification with feminism in Japan. The December 2015 Agreement over the ‘comfort women’ issue concluded by the Japanese and South Korean governments had a big impact on Yang and the Japan-based advocacy movement, because it resulted in their alienation from Japan's broad left. In the chapter, Yang reflects on changes in her activism since 2015, and lessons learnt from her long-running involvement in survivor Song Shin-do’s court cases against the Japanese government. The chapter concludes with Yang’s thoughts about the influence of the South Korean ‘comfort women’ advocacy movement on contemporary Japanese feminism.KeywordsYang Ching-JaKibōtaneComfort women‘Zainichi’ feminist campaigningKorean CouncilDecember 2015 AgreementSong Shin-DoYouth study tours to South Korea‘Flower demo’