military bases import women from Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. military sex industry in order to support their families and that these women were under governmental surveil lance. military prostitution in South Korea, I learned that a significant number of Korean women entered the U.S. More than a million Korean women have sexually catered to U.S. Throughout the Korean and Vietnam wars, the so-called Relaxation and Recreation business had been systematized around the U.S. military prostitution, the use of Korean sex workers who became America’s “comfort women.” 8 One of the legacies of the war was the practice of U.S. The real tragedy of the Korean War is not simply that the war resolved nothing, but that the country has been divided ever since, guaranteeing consistent, extreme tension between the North and South for six decades now. 6 The war was theologically justified by Christian realists such as Reinhold Niebuhr because the United States felt responsible for protecting democracy in the Far East against evil communist North Korea, allegedly controlled by China and the former Soviet Union. Soon after gaining independence, the Korean War (1950-1953) broke out. Rather, the system evolved into a new form for American soldiers. Unfortunately, the comfort women system did not cease to exist when Korea won independence from imperial Japan after World War II. 5 Imperial Japan carried out its warfare at the cost of the bodies of comfort women. According to Chung, the system of comfort women that targeted many Korean women was instituted because 1) imperial Japan had to control the sexual desires and venereal diseases of its soldiers, who often raped local women or slept with sex workers, by providing allegedly clean Korean women, who lived under the neo-Confucian law of chastity and 2) some “comfort” and recreation had to be provided for Japanese soldiers, who were anxious about losing the war. These women were forced to be sexual slaves for Japanese soldiers. 4ĭuring World War II, imperial Japan kidnapped or forcefully drafted women from their occupied territories, including Korea, Northern China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan. This strange and familiar story haunts each Korean woman who hears it. My Death,” Korean feminist theologian Chung Hyun Kyung states that for Korean women, the “comfort woman” narrative is the “root story” of what it means to be a woman. Without analyzing and abolishing the gender-based military violence, “global peace” is mere empty rhetoric. The more I incorporate a feminist gender analysis of war into my theo-ethical contemplation on peacemaking, the more convinced I am that excessive military-based security, as demonstrated by the gender-based wartime ordeal of the “comfort women” system in Korea, is a root cause of oppression of women transnationally. Unfortunately, military prostitution and sexual slavery are found in almost every conflict zone, not just in Korea. This theological and intellectual curiosity first arose when I learned that the “comfort women” system, the system of military sexual slavery and forced military prostitution in Korea, was systematically controlled by the state and yet publicly silenced for the sake of international peace and security. It was not an accident that I would focus my academic training of Christian feminist ethics on life during wartime – more specifically, how war affects women’s and men’s lives differently. Ann Joh’s theological reflection translates these feelings that “The DMZ 2 reminds one of a visible scar, a wound running along the body of Korea … This wound is constantly poked and torn open fresh with barely enough time to form a scab.” 3 When I recall this conversation, I am reminded that I am from a “war zone.” 1 Although I have never experienced armed conflict, my Korean identity sometimes gives me feelings of horror, uncertainty, and deep sorrow caused by war and by the division of the Korean peninsula. “Well, that’s North Korea and I am from South Korea. “I’m sorry?” I did not understand what he was asking until he mumbled, “Korea is an axis of evil … has nuclear weapons … and wants to bomb us.”
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