The New York Times
A Harvard professor called Wartime Sex Slaves ‘Prostitutes’. One pushed back.
SEOUL, South Korea – The students and the survivor were split over two generations and 7,000 miles, but they met at Zoom to discuss a common goal: to transform the widely contested claims of a Harvard professor about sexual slavery during World War II at a time of learning. A recent academic journal article by the professor – in which he described Koreans and other women forced to serve Japanese troops as “prostitutes” – sparked protests in South Korea and among academics in the United States. He also offered a chance, on Zoom’s call last week, for the elderly survivor of the Japanese Imperial Army brothels to tell his story to a group of Harvard students, including his case of why Japan should apologize completely and face a lawsuit. International. Sign up for the New York Times newsletter The Morning “The Harvard professor’s recent comments are something you should all ignore,” Lee Yong-soo, a 92-year-old man in South Korea and one of only a handful of so-called comfort women still alive, they told the students. But the comments were a “blessing in disguise” because they created a huge controversy, added Lee, who was kidnapped by Japanese soldiers during World War II and raped repeatedly. “So this is a kind of warning.” The dispute over academic work echoes in the early 1990s, a time when the world was beginning to hear the voices of Japan’s sexual slavery survivors during the war in Asia – traumas that the region’s conservative patriarchal cultures have long since minimized. Now, the testimony of the survivors directs much of the academic narrative on the subject. Still, many scholars say that conservative forces are once again trying to marginalize survivors. “This is so surprising, 30 years later, to be dragged back, because in the meantime, survivors from a wide variety of countries have found a voice,” Alexis Dudden, a historian in Japan and Korea at the University of Connecticut who interviewed women. The uproar began after an academic newspaper website published an article in December in which J. Mark Ramseyer, a professor at Harvard Law School, argued that women were “prostitutes” who voluntarily signed employment contracts. An international chorus of historians asked for the article to be retracted, saying its arguments ignored extensive historical evidence and sounded more like a page from Japan’s far-right handbook. A group of more than 1,900 economists wrote this week that the article used theory games, law and economics as “cover to legitimize horrific atrocities”. The Korean International Students Association at Harvard also demanded an apology from Ramseyer, expressing concern that the name of the university “could add credibility to the argument” that the Japanese government during the war was not responsible for the trafficking and slavery of women . A similar language petition was signed by hundreds of Harvard students. Several scholars have noted that Ramseyer’s argument was flawed because he did not present any signed contracts with Korean women as evidence – and that focusing on contracts in the first place was misleading because women, many of whom were teenagers, had no freedom to act. Ramseyer’s article also ignored a 1996 United Nations report that concluded that consoling women, who came from several countries, mainly from Asia, were sex slaves, said Yang Kee-ho, a professor of Japanese studies at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul. “There are many details in the newspaper that contradict the facts and distort the truth,” he added. The newspaper, “Hiring Sex in the Pacific War,” argues that the Japanese army created standards to license so-called comfort stations across Asia during World War II as a way to prevent the spread of venereal disease. Ramseyer, a specialist in Japanese law, wrote that the “prostitutes” who worked in the brothels signed contracts similar to those used in the Tokyo brothels, but with shorter terms and higher wages to reflect the danger of working in war zones. Ramseyer declined an interview request. He previously argued that relying on survivors’ testimonies is problematic because some of the women have changed their accounts over the years. “The allegations about enslaved Korean women are historically false,” he wrote last month on Japan Forward, an English site affiliated with a right-wing Japanese newspaper. The International Review of Law and Economics, which published Ramseyer’s recent article online, posted an “expression of concern” this month, saying it was investigating the newspaper’s historical evidence. But the magazine’s editorial team said through a spokesman that the article would still be published in the March issue and was “considered final”. Another publication, the European Journal of Law and Economics, said this week that it was investigating concerns raised about an article by Ramseyer that he published last week about the experiences of Korean immigrants in Japan. Ramseyer’s supporters include a group of six academics based on Japan who told the editors of the International Review of Law and Economics in a letter that the article that caused the recent outcry was “well within the academic and diplomatic stream” and supported by the work of scholars in Japan, South Korea and the United States. They did not cite any specific scholars. One scholar who signed the letter, Kanji Katsuoka, said in an interview that he had only read the summary of the article “Hiring for Sex”, but felt that the term “prostitute” was appropriate because women had been paid for their services. “Harvard University is the best school in the United States,” added Katsuoka, professor at Meisei University and secretary general of a right-wing research organization. “If they lose freedom of speech, I must judge that there is no freedom of expression in the United States.” Three decades ago, when survivors like Lee began to speak publicly about their sexual slavery to Japanese troops, they were embraced by a nascent feminist movement in East Asia that prioritized the right of women to claim their own history. Although the depositions generated an official apology from Japan in 1993, the issue remains deeply controversial. The governments of Japan and South Korea agreed to resolve it in 2015, when Japan expressed responsibility, again apologized to women and pledged to create a $ 8.3 million fund to help provide care for the elderly. Some of the survivors accepted a portion of the funds, but Lee and some others rejected the opening, saying it failed to provide official redress or specify Japan’s legal responsibility. More recently, Japan’s right-wing people, including the former Prime Minister, Minister Shinzo Abe, insisted that Korean women were not sex slaves because there is no evidence that they were physically forced into the brothels. Survivors have long contested that claim. Lee said Japanese soldiers dragged her from her home when she was a teenager, covering her mouth so that she couldn’t call her mother. Ji Soo Janet Park, a Harvard law student who helped organize the recent Zoom event with Lee, said it was designed to combat “deniers and revisionists” who sought to erase reports of sexual slavery during the war. “We are the next generation responsible for making sure this remains part of history,” said Park, 27, whose graduate thesis explored how memorials to former sex slaves shape Korean American identity. In an interview this week, Lee, the survivor, said she was dismayed to see people in Japan echo Ramseyer’s “absurd” comments. She said she did not give up on her campaign to have the matter processed at the International Court of Justice. “As my last job, I would like to clarify the issue at CIJ,” she said, referring to the court. “When I die and find the victims who have passed away, I can tell them that I have solved this problem.” This article was originally published in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company