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The “comfort women” system was a horrific atrocity. Yet, the “comfort women” survivors are also artists, educators, and activists who have worked passionately to support survivors of sexual violence everywhere. The movement they started invites us all to participate and take action against oppression. Check out what you can do today!

News

April 25, 2025
A South Korean court ordered the Japanese government to pay compensation to the son of a former "comfort woman" over her treatment in military brothels during World War II. Japanese officials have continue to state that the "comfort women" issue was "irreversibly" ended in a 2015 bilateral agreement.

Click here to read the full article from Kyodo News

November 23, 2023
A South Korean appellate court ordered Japan to compensate a group of 16 women who were forced to work in Japanese wartime brothels, overturning a lower court ruling that dismissed the case. The 16 victims filed suit in 2016, seeking (200 million won ($155,000 USD) each in compensation, but the Seoul Central District Court dismissed the case in 2021, citing sovereign immunity," a concept that allows a state to be exempt from a civil suit in foreign courts. The appellate court later stated, "It is reasonable to consider that there is a common international law which does not recognize state immunity for an illegal act... regardless of whether the act was a sovereign act." Japanese officials have stated that the judgment went against international law and agreements between the two countries, calling it "extremely regrettable and absolutely unacceptable."

Click here to read the full article from Reuters

September 29, 2022
South Korea's highest court orded the state to pay compensation—between 3 million and 7 million won (approx. $2,100 - $4,900 USD)—to each of the 95 surviving former military sex workers who lived in "camptowns" or Gijichon that developed around U.S. military bases. The court ruling recognized the South Korean government's responsibility in coordinating prostitution for the U.S. military and subjecting sex workers to physical and psychological suffering.

Click here to read the full article from Hankyoreh

February 16, 2021
A Harvard Law School professor claimed in his recent paper that women and girls knowingly and willingly entered into a valid contract to serve as Japanese military prostitutes during World War II. J. Mark Ramseyer argues that the recruitment of "comfort women" victims was a consenting, contractual process.

We at KAN-WIN join the "comfort women" survivors, activists and scholars across the globe in calling out Ramseyer's outrageous denialism. His paper masks the overwhelming historical evidence of the Japanese military sexual slavery under the guise of contractual law and game theory and blatantly ignores a vast collection of "comfort women" survivor testimonies that bear witness to the horrific crime of sexual violence. It is ludicrous to believe that girls and women from occupied territories, some as young as 12, could enter into a contract without coercion or consent to abduction and rape.

Check out below links for statements and petitions that you can read and sign on!