The Transnational Redress Movement for the Victims of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery

Pyong Gap Min, Thomas R. Chung, Sejung Yim, City University New York

"This collection of essays is a landmark in the redress movement for victims and survivors of Japan's wartime system of militarized sexual slavery. As a whole, it brings an international depth of study and analysis and combines with a truly transnational approach to issues and challenges all involved in this history and its legacies face. The volume's authors introduce a wide range of new materials and also collectively go to great efforts to transcend simplistic "blame games," keeping focus on restoring dignity to those ensnared in this horrendous system and considering how best to keep truthful accounting of its history alive." Professor Alexis Dudden, Department of History, University of Connecticut

"This book is a highly significant work by several authors committed to documenting the coercion of South Korean women into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during the 1930s and 1940s. While this is a specific case study of violence in the context of Korean and Japanese history and politics, it is also a larger example of the institutionalizationof patriarchal force that can emanate 'top down' from gender-based power relations steeped in dominance and subordination. In other words, the contribution of Min et al. is to specifically document the too often overlooked crimes committed against Korean 'comfort women' while adding to our knowledge of how sexism interacts with nation, ethnic and class-based conflicts broadly speaking. The volume, and its moving contributions,succeeds at both these particular and general levels; it will be required reading for anyone concerned about not forgetting crimes against women that should never happen again." Professor Lynn S. Chancer, Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York