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Introduction by Malala Yousafzai
When I was a child, I believed silence protected us. I believed if we didn't speak of the wounds, they might go away. But I was wrong.
Silence doesn’t protect the wounded. It protects those who wound.
The women you are about to hear—from Korea, the Netherlands, Indonesia, China, and beyond—were silenced not only by soldiers, but by nations, by families, and sometimes by their own shame. For decades, they were hidden in the margins of history books, their truth dismissed as political inconvenience.
But here, in these conversations, they reclaim their stories—not as victims, but as women who chose to speak when the world looked away.
As someone who survived violence meant to silence girls, I stand with these grandmothers, these artists, these daughters of memory. Their pain is not ancient. Their courage is not forgotten. And their dignity is not negotiable.
These are not just conversations. They are bridges across silence—toward justice, healing, and hope.
May we listen with reverence. And may we carry their voices forward, louder than history ever dared.
(Note: This is an imaginary conversation, a creative exploration of an idea, and not a real speech or event.)
Topic 1: The Silenced Voices – Breaking the Taboo of Testimony
Moderator: Aramun (a gentle, wise spiritual guide from the afterlife, helping bridge trauma and truth)
Aramun (moderator):
Many of you waited decades before speaking. What kept you silent for so long, and what finally gave you the courage to speak?
Jan Ruff O’Herne:
For me, silence was armor. After the war, I became a wife, a mother. Who would understand if I told them I was forced into a Japanese military brothel? For years, I felt shame—though the shame belonged to my abusers. It wasn’t until I saw Korean women speaking out that I realized: if they could do it, so could I. My voice could be their echo.
Kim Hak-sun:
I kept my story inside for over 45 years. It wasn’t because I forgot. It was because I remembered—every scream, every soldier, every night. Korea was a society of silence then. I feared blame. I feared being called “unclean.” But one day, I realized that silence was protecting the wrong people. So I walked into that courtroom in 1991 and spoke. My voice was mine again.
Yun Chung-ok:
I’m not a survivor, but my mother was a victim. She never told me, but I always saw it in her eyes. I became a scholar because I needed to understand her pain. Helping these women testify was not just about truth—it was about freeing generations from a buried wound. What gave them courage? Other women. Knowing they weren’t alone.
George Hicks:
As a historian, I came to this topic from archival silence. It was like an erased chapter in history. The courage of women like Kim Hak-sun shook that silence loose. Their bravery became a call to document everything. They didn’t just speak for themselves—they changed international law, gender studies, and the memory of war.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:
I speak from another world, but the patterns are the same. Patriarchy silences. Empire silences. The single story of heroism and victory erases the women whose bodies were battlegrounds. What gives a person courage to speak? The knowledge that silence is no longer survivable. That voice, even cracked and trembling, is power.
Aramun:
How did your silence shape your identity, your relationships, your view of justice during the years you said nothing?
Kim Hak-sun:
It made me small. I lived as a seamstress. I stitched clothes for people who never knew my scars. I smiled at their weddings, fixed their dresses, held their babies. But I never let anyone touch my heart. Silence made me invisible. Speaking turned me human again.
George Hicks:
Interviewing survivors, I saw how silence isolates. Some women never married. Others lived in orphanages. Justice wasn’t just a courtroom—it was being seen as real people again. Silence turned them into shadows. Testimony brought them back to life in history and in community.
Jan Ruff O’Herne:
For 50 years, I was a devout Catholic grandmother. But something was always cracked inside. I struggled to explain my fury at injustice. Only after speaking did I realize: I wasn’t angry at life—I was angry at what was stolen. Silence had distorted my soul’s outline. Speaking restored it.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:
Silence is not neutral—it is a narrative. It tells the world: this story doesn’t matter. For women, especially women of color, it erases the architecture of selfhood. Speaking isn’t just testimony. It’s reclamation. It’s saying: I am not what was done to me—I am what I choose to name.
Yun Chung-ok:
Silence shaped generations of Korean women. Mothers never told daughters. Pain passed like a ghost in the kitchen. I saw my students cry over stories they didn’t know belonged to their own grandmothers. That’s why justice must include education. Without knowledge, the silence mutates.
Aramun:
Now that your voices have been heard around the world, what message do you want future generations to carry—not just about what happened, but about how to live with dignity after trauma?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:
Dignity is not something others give you—it is something you decide to protect, no matter how much they try to take it. For future generations: listen to the silences in your stories. Then speak. Write. Sing. Dance. Testify. Let no one dictate your silence again.
Yun Chung-ok:
Remember this: the pain is not yours alone. Trauma isolated the victims, but healing connects us all. Tell the stories, even when they hurt. That’s how truth ripples across time. That’s how societies learn not just to say sorry—but to change.
Jan Ruff O’Herne:
I want young women to know they are not shameful, no matter what has been done to them. I forgave—not because they deserved it, but because I needed freedom. Dignity is walking into light when everything in you wants to hide.
George Hicks:
My message is to historians: don’t wait for the archives. Listen to people. Believe women. Sometimes justice doesn’t come from law—it comes from memory. Our future depends on what stories we choose to preserve. And who we choose to believe.
Kim Hak-sun:
To every girl who thinks her voice is too small—I was like you. But I spoke, and others followed. I was the first, but I wasn’t the last. We are never alone in truth. Hold it like a torch. Pass it on.
Topic 2: Systematic Violence – How the System Was Built and Sustained
Moderator: Aramun
Aramun:
What do you believe was the key factor that allowed the comfort station system to be built and accepted so widely during the war?
Peter Kornbluh:
It was secrecy married with bureaucracy. The Japanese military treated sexual slavery like a logistics issue—documents show transportation orders, budget allocations, and chains of command. After the war, the U.S. and others prioritized Cold War alliances over justice. That silence became complicity.
Iris Chang:
Dehumanization. That’s the root. The same force that fueled the Rape of Nanking—viewing conquered people, especially women, as less than human—also fueled the comfort system. It wasn’t just accepted; it was engineered. When dignity is stripped from the enemy, cruelty becomes strategy.
Yoshiaki Yoshimi:
I found the official documents in Japan’s Defense Agency Library. They confirmed that the military was directly involved in the creation, management, and transportation of comfort women. The lie was that it was private business. The truth was state policy. And yet, textbooks omitted this for decades.
Hannah Arendt:
When violence is bureaucratized, evil feels ordinary. A soldier fills out a transport form, a clerk signs off rations, a superior nods. No one asks: “What are we doing to these girls?” That’s the banality of evil. The system flourished because moral thought was replaced with obedience.
Haruki Wada:
Japan, as a rising imperial power, believed it could adopt Western colonial methods but refine them. The comfort system was framed as hygiene control and military efficiency. But this framing masked what it truly was—rape as routine. Empire always comes with denial.
Aramun:
What role did ideology—nationalism, imperialism, and patriarchy—play in sustaining this system?
Iris Chang:
Japanese soldiers were taught they were racially superior. Asian women were “gifts” or “tools” for the empire. It was a brutal blend of nationalism and misogyny. The state taught boys that violence against women wasn’t shameful—it was loyalty to the emperor.
Haruki Wada:
Patriarchy normalized it, but nationalism made it sacred. A soldier forcing a girl wasn’t a crime—it was reframed as “relief for the front lines.” The system was seen as a national duty. Once that narrative spreads, dissent becomes treason.
Peter Kornbluh:
Imperial Japan engineered a system that made sexual violence both invisible and inevitable. Patriarchy was the scaffolding; nationalism was the flag. And the U.S., after the war, helped cover it up to keep Japan as a stable ally. That’s geopolitical patriarchy.
Yoshiaki Yoshimi:
The comfort system wasn’t a byproduct—it was a deliberate feature. Army doctors, military police, logistics officers—all participated. Imperial ideology didn’t just allow abuse; it sanitized it. That’s why acknowledgment has been so slow—it means admitting the ideology itself was rotten.
Hannah Arendt:
Ideology is most dangerous when it masks itself as virtue. Patriotism becomes the excuse for cruelty. Gender roles become weapons. Bureaucracy becomes a blindfold. When these forces converge, horror becomes normalized.
Aramun:
How can we prevent future generations from repeating the same patterns of systemic dehumanization, especially during war?
Peter Kornbluh:
We need transparency—always. Declassify war records. Preserve survivor testimony. Teach the next generation to distrust secrecy. The truth won’t save the world alone, but lies always kill faster.
Yoshiaki Yoshimi:
History education must be honest. Not selective. Not sanitized. If young Japanese students grow up never learning this happened, we are planting seeds of future injustice. A nation must confront its past, or it will recreate it.
Hannah Arendt:
Teach children to think. Not just memorize. To ask: “Is this right?” Not just: “Is this legal?” Bureaucracy dulls moral instinct. Only education rooted in critical thought can resist it.
Iris Chang:
I’ve said before: “The best way to prevent atrocities is to expose them.” Don’t wait for perfect justice—start with perfect memory. Once the veil of denial is lifted, the system loses its armor.
Haruki Wada:
International pressure matters. But so does inner reckoning. Japan must go beyond apologies—it must engage in full public truth-telling. That’s how a society teaches itself not to fall again into darkness.
Topic 3: Denial, Diplomacy, and Apology – Whose History Gets Remembered?
Moderator: Aramun
Aramun:
Why do you think the comfort women issue remains so contested between Japan and Korea, even after multiple apologies?
Moon Jae-in:
Because apologies without sincerity feel like negotiation, not repentance. When Japan offers an apology and then backpedals under political pressure, it reopens wounds. For Korea, it’s not just about the past—it’s about how that past is treated today. Truth needs permanence, not politics.
Shinzo Abe:
I recognize the pain involved, but Japan has issued apologies—many, in fact. The problem is interpretation. Some want an apology to mean legal guilt, others see it as moral acknowledgment. My concern was preserving Japan’s dignity. I regret if some felt dismissed, but nations must look forward.
Elie Wiesel:
Memory is not an option—it’s a duty. And when memory is selective, injustice multiplies. If you say “we apologized,” but you also suppress textbooks, silence survivors, and glorify militarism, the apology becomes a hollow whisper. Remembrance must be active.
Park Yu-ha:
I believe many things are being simplified in this conversation. Not all comfort women were taken by force. Some were deceived, some coerced by Korean brokers. That doesn’t reduce the crime—but it complicates the narrative. We must confront all the truths, even uncomfortable ones.
Maria Ressa:
History wars are about power. If Japan admits full responsibility, it risks international backlash. If Korea hardens its stance, it risks diplomacy. But in the end, what matters is narrative control. Whoever controls the story controls the future. That’s why this battle never ends.
Aramun:
What does a sincere apology look like—not just in words, but in action?
Elie Wiesel:
A sincere apology lives beyond the moment it’s spoken. It becomes curriculum. It funds healing. It shows up in monuments, museums, and children's books. It doesn’t defend itself. It listens. It doesn’t say, “We’ve done enough.” It says, “We’ll never stop remembering.”
Park Yu-ha:
For me, it includes acknowledgment of complexity. Japan should apologize clearly, yes. But Korea, too, should examine its role—its silence, its complicity in poverty, its use of these women postwar. Only by embracing the full story can either side find peace.
Shinzo Abe:
I believe the 2015 agreement was sincere—$8.3 million in support, an official apology, mutual understanding. But media distortion and activist pressure diluted the gesture. We need a space where state diplomacy and civil society can move in sync.
Moon Jae-in:
Money without moral clarity is insulting. The women weren’t asking for funds—they were asking to be believed, to be restored as human beings. True apology means you don’t revise your position based on polling or pressure. It’s a one-way bridge—built and never withdrawn.
Maria Ressa:
Action means protecting truth-tellers. It means banning denial, the way Germany did for the Holocaust. It means honoring survivors by protecting journalists, artists, and teachers who fight to keep their voices alive. Apology is not a press release—it’s a platform.
Aramun:
Who do you believe history will vindicate in this debate—and what determines which version of history survives?
Maria Ressa:
History always leans toward the loudest voice—unless the quiet ones are archived, amplified, defended. The women who testified are already winning because their stories are now global. The question is: will their dignity survive propaganda? That depends on us.
Moon Jae-in:
The survivors will be vindicated. Their suffering was real. But for that truth to live on, governments must stop treating history like a diplomatic poker chip. What survives is what is taught. If we fail to educate the next generation, denial will win.
Shinzo Abe:
I believe Japan’s commitment to peace and its postwar humility will be recognized. But we must also resist a narrative that paints an entire nation as monstrous. History must separate individual wrongs from collective identity. Balance matters.
Elie Wiesel:
Those who suffer in silence are rarely remembered—unless someone carries their voice. We must carry it. Japan has a choice: become the guardian of its victims, or the editor of their memory. One path redeems. The other condemns.
Park Yu-ha:
Perhaps history should not “vindicate” but understand. This is not a courtroom—it is a memory field. Let every voice be heard, not just those that confirm our beliefs. That’s the only path to healing that lasts.
Topic 4: Healing Across Generations – Trauma, Art, and Reclamation
Moderator: Aramun
Aramun:
How has trauma from the comfort women system shaped not only the survivors, but their children and grandchildren?
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk:
Trauma doesn’t end with the event. It reshapes the brain, the body, and—most invisibly—the family story. When survivors suppress their experiences, their children often carry the emotional residue. It appears in anxiety, silence, fear of touch. Healing must involve the whole lineage.
Lee Yong-soo:
I never married. I never had children. But I’ve met many daughters of other survivors. They tell me they felt their mother’s sorrow, even without words. We didn’t just lose our youth—we lost the right to nurture a new generation freely.
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha:
In my art, I explore loss without borders. Colonialism, language erasure, sexual violence—these become echoes in the daughters' bodies. Silence is not absence. It is a language passed down. Trauma stains what we inherit, and art becomes the way to translate pain into something the next generation can hold.
Yoko Ogawa:
The unspoken becomes an atmosphere in the home. Even if a mother never told her daughter, the daughter feels what is forbidden. My writing often touches on that—when history leaves no scar, but the body remembers anyway.
Maya Lin:
When memory is not preserved visibly, it sinks underground. That’s why I believe in memorials—not just for the dead, but for the survivors and their families. Physical space helps break generational silence. It says: You are not alone. You are seen.
Aramun:
How can art, writing, and public expression support healing in ways that politics and law cannot?
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha:
Art doesn’t demand consensus. It can be fragmented, broken, just like memory. In that space, survivors feel safe to express truth without needing it to be whole. A single word. A single image. It’s enough to reclaim one’s body through metaphor.
Yoko Ogawa:
Literature offers quiet understanding. It doesn’t shout. It whispers with precision. For those who feel ashamed or unheard, fiction becomes a place where their truth can live with dignity. Writing is a healing act for both reader and writer.
Maya Lin:
A monument is a collective memory made physical. But it must be done with care. It cannot just be a stone—there must be space for silence, for reflection. Art must invite the viewer to feel, not just observe. Only then does it heal.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk:
Neurologically, art and storytelling rewire trauma. They allow a person to re-experience pain in a safe framework. The body finds language for what was unspeakable. That’s how healing starts—not through denial or legal victory, but through expression.
Lee Yong-soo:
When I speak to students, I am not seeking pity. I want them to draw what they feel, to write letters to the grandmothers. That act connects them. That is art. It is how I stay alive—not just physically, but spiritually.
Aramun:
What legacy should future generations carry—not just about what was done, but how those who suffered rose and rebuilt?
Lee Yong-soo:
Tell them we didn’t stay silent. That we stood with trembling legs and spoke the truth. Tell them dignity is not taken forever—it can be reclaimed, even at eighty years old. We were broken, but not erased.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk:
The legacy is resilience through reclamation. Not just surviving, but reshaping identity through choice, through voice, through bodywork and creativity. Every act of healing is resistance against the past’s control.
Maya Lin:
Let their names be known, not just their pain. Give them gardens, murals, songs. That’s how legacy lives—not in dates and treaties, but in beauty that whispers their strength into everyday life.
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha:
Legacy is texture. Fractured language. A body that bears memory and still dances. I want them to inherit not just our sorrow, but our fire. And our refusal to disappear.
Yoko Ogawa:
Let them inherit empathy. The quiet kind. The kind that reads a woman’s silence and does not rush her to speak. The kind that waits with her, and says: “You’re still here. That is enough.”
Topic 5: Justice Unfinished – Legal, Moral, and Historical Reckoning
Moderator: Aramun
Aramun:
Despite international awareness, many survivors have passed without seeing full justice. What does justice look like to you, and why has it remained so elusive?
Shin Heisoo:
Justice is not just about compensation—it’s about acknowledgment with no strings attached. The women asked for an official apology and recognition of legal responsibility. Instead, they received vague statements and political deals. Justice is elusive because the system fears setting precedent.
Setsuko Thurlow:
As a Hiroshima survivor, I know what it means to wait for justice while the world moves on. For comfort women, justice means being remembered as more than victims. It means being honored in textbooks, museums, and international law—not as shame, but as strength.
Bryan Stevenson:
Injustice lingers when the perpetrators hold power and the victims are marginalized. Legal systems often serve the powerful. For comfort women, justice requires truth-telling, reparations, and a moral shift—a collective admission that what happened was a crime, not just a wartime necessity.
Amal Clooney:
From a legal perspective, the challenge lies in time. Crimes committed 80 years ago face statutes, missing evidence, and fading witnesses. But that doesn’t mean justice is impossible. International law must evolve to prioritize dignity and historical harm, not just legal feasibility.
Shirin Ebadi:
In Iran, I saw how women are erased from justice systems. The comfort women were doubly silenced—by patriarchy and politics. Justice means rewriting the laws, yes, but also the culture. When a society protects the honor of the perpetrator over the survivor, justice dies.
Aramun:
What are the dangers of leaving this issue unresolved in the global conscience?
Amal Clooney:
Precedent. If Japan can evade full accountability despite international awareness, what message does that send? It tells future powers: apologize just enough to quiet outrage, then move on. That’s dangerous. Justice should be a deterrent, not a delay tactic.
Bryan Stevenson:
The danger is historical amnesia. When societies don’t reckon with their crimes, the cycle repeats. Denial is not passive—it actively harms. It tells the next generation that silence is safer than truth. And in that silence, injustice thrives.
Shin Heisoo:
It undermines human rights institutions. The UN has repeatedly urged Japan to do more. If such appeals are ignored, international frameworks weaken. Worse, survivors lose faith—not just in nations, but in the global conscience itself.
Setsuko Thurlow:
When survivors die unheard, we lose more than memory—we lose moral direction. The danger isn’t just forgetting—it’s rewriting. Future textbooks may say, “There were claims,” not “There was suffering.” Language shapes legacy.
Shirin Ebadi:
Unresolved injustice metastasizes. If one country gets away with institutional violence, others will follow. This isn’t just Japan’s burden—it’s humanity’s test. How we treat our most silenced defines who we become.
Aramun:
If the world were listening right now, what final message would you deliver on behalf of the comfort women?
Setsuko Thurlow:
We carried pain so others wouldn’t have to. Remember us as witnesses—not of shame, but of resilience. And promise to be braver, faster, and louder in defense of the next victim.
Shirin Ebadi:
Protect the future by facing the past. Do not wait for silence to be the only voice left. Speak now, act now, change now.
Bryan Stevenson:
Truth is the foundation of justice. No matter how delayed, it is never too late to tell it. The world must decide: Are we more committed to comfort or to courage?
Shin Heisoo:
To every government, every court, every citizen: believe women. That’s the beginning of justice. The end is when we no longer have to ask for it.
Amal Clooney:
History is watching. And one day, it will ask: Did we offer bandages, or did we rebuild dignity? I hope we choose the latter—before it’s too late.
Final Thoughts by Malala Yousafzai
We have heard the testimonies. We have walked through shadows of history. And we have seen how even in the deepest silence, there is a voice waiting to rise.
Justice, we’ve learned, is not just a verdict or a treaty. It is a girl daring to speak. A grandmother refusing to forget. A nation choosing to remember, even when it hurts.
Some of the women in these stories have passed on. Some are still fighting. But all of them are asking us the same question:
Will you remember me not just for what was done to me—but for how I stood up again?
To every young person, every teacher, every leader:
Let this be the moment we rewrite what silence means.
Let it mean respect, not erasure.
Let it mean reflection, not forgetting.
Let it mean readiness to listen—and to change.
I am proud to stand with these women. And I believe the future they dreamed of—where truth matters and dignity is non-negotiable—is still possible.
But only if we choose to carry it forward. Together.
Short Bios:
Amal Clooney
A prominent international human rights lawyer known for her work on war crimes, freedom of speech, and advocacy for survivors of sexual violence in conflict zones. She brings legal expertise to global justice movements.
Aramun (Fictional)
A compassionate, otherworldly moderator created for this series—serving as a spiritual guide who facilitates difficult but healing conversations between historical figures and survivors beyond the boundary of life and death.
Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
A psychiatrist and trauma expert, author of The Body Keeps the Score. His work has reshaped how we understand and treat psychological trauma, emphasizing mind-body healing.
Bryan Stevenson
Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy, Stevenson is a leading voice in fighting systemic injustice, particularly within the U.S. legal system.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A Nigerian writer and feminist, known for Half of a Yellow Sun and her TED Talk We Should All Be Feminists. She addresses the power of narrative and silence in shaping social identity.
Elie Wiesel
Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. His work, including Night, has become a moral cornerstone in global conversations on memory, trauma, and justice.
George Hicks
Author of The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, Hicks helped bring international attention to the systematic abuse of women by the Japanese military.
Hannah Arendt
A German-American philosopher and political theorist known for The Origins of Totalitarianism and coining the term “the banality of evil” during her coverage of the Eichmann trial.
Haruki Wada
A Japanese historian who has been instrumental in advocating for Japanese accountability in World War II atrocities, with a focus on truth-telling and reconciliation in East Asia.
Iris Chang
Chinese-American journalist and author of The Rape of Nanking, which exposed Japanese military atrocities in China. Her passionate advocacy for historical justice left a powerful legacy.
Jan Ruff O’Herne
A Dutch-Australian survivor of the Japanese military comfort station system. After decades of silence, she testified publicly in the 1990s and became a global advocate for survivors of wartime sexual violence.
Kim Hak-sun
The first Korean former comfort woman to publicly testify in 1991. Her brave disclosure broke decades of silence and sparked the international movement for justice for the survivors.
Lee Yong-soo
A Korean comfort woman survivor who became a powerful advocate, speaking at the UN and around the world to push for official apologies and reparations from the Japanese government.
Maria Ressa
Filipino-American journalist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and co-founder of Rappler. She’s a fearless defender of truth in the face of authoritarian power and disinformation campaigns.
Maya Lin
Architect and designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Her work centers on memory, absence, and collective mourning expressed through minimalist design.
Park Yu-ha
A Korean literature professor and author of Comfort Women of the Empire, whose controversial interpretation of the comfort women system has been both praised for nuance and criticized for revisionism.
Setsuko Thurlow
A Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor and anti-nuclear activist. She’s spoken globally about the moral responsibilities of memory, peace, and survivor dignity.
Shin Heisoo
A South Korean women’s rights activist and former UN CEDAW committee member who has worked on advancing global legal frameworks for gender justice.
Shinzo Abe
Former Prime Minister of Japan (2006–2007, 2012–2020). His nationalist policies and statements on wartime history made him a central figure in the comfort women discourse.
Shirin Ebadi
Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A vocal advocate for democracy, legal reform, and the rights of women and children in authoritarian regimes.
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
A Korean-American artist and author of Dictee, whose work explores trauma, exile, and fragmented identity through language and experimental form.
Yoko Ogawa
Acclaimed Japanese novelist known for her quiet, unsettling stories that explore memory, silence, and the emotional shadows of trauma.
Yoshiaki Yoshimi
Japanese historian who uncovered official documents proving military involvement in the comfort women system, playing a vital role in Japan’s academic reckoning with its past.
Yun Chung-ok
Korean activist and scholar who gathered testimonies and advocated for comfort women recognition. Her work helped transform hidden pain into international advocacy.
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