SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS PASSES RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF THE “COMFORT WOMEN”
On April 6, 2021, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed Resolution 210319: Denouncing Harvard Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Law, J. Mark Ramseyer’s Article, “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War.”
The resolution, sponsored by President Shamann Walton and co-sponsored by 7 other members of the Board: Matt Haney, Rafael Mandelman, Gordon Mar, Myrna Melgar, Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen and Ahsha Safai, once again affirmed the demand of the comfort women for justice and confronted yet another example of historical denialism. In doing so, the Board again resisted pressure from the Japanese consulate and renewed its commitment to women and human rights.
Board of Supervisors Pass Resolution 210319
The resolution ends with the following:
WHEREAS, Incidents of gender violence, sex trafficking, and femicide, are increasing in the world; and
WHEREAS, Historical Denialism of the “comfort women” system makes it ever more difficult to eradicate this violence against women; and
WHEREAS, Historical Denialism as evidenced in Mr. Ramseyer’s article also denies women survivors of sexual servitude the justice they deserve; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the San Francisco Board of Supervisors denounces J. Mark Ramseyer’s article, “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War” and urges the International Review of Law and Economics Journal to withdraw the article from circulation.
Here is some background:
In December 2019, the J. Mark Ramseyer, the Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Legal Studies at Harvard University published: “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War in the International Review of Law and Economics.” In it, Ramseyer contradicted all historical facts and said that the women and girls who “served” the Japanese Imperial Army were not sexually enslaved, but rather, prostitutes who had entered into fully and freely understood, and fairly well paid contracts. Although he admitted he had never seen such a contract and therefore presented no real evidence, he said he employed “game theory” as a path toward his conclusions. He actually used the case of a ten year old girl as his example of someone who freely entered into such an arrangement.
Earlier, in an accompanying op ed in Japan Forward, the English language edition of Sankei Shimbun, a right wing Japanese newspaper, Ramseyer stated: “We are not used to finding that the story is pure fiction. But that is the nature of the comfort-women-sex-slave story.”
Ironically Mr. Ramseyer’s article did the exact opposite of what he supposedly intended: instead of causing people to denounce the facts of injustice surrounding “comfort women” history, it further mobilized people in defense of the “comfort women.”
We, in the “Comfort Women” Justice Coalition, knew that we too had to respond. We felt that it was important to do so officially from the city which built the “Comfort Women” memorial.
The SF Board of Supervisors also had a history of supporting the comfort women in several other resolutions:
Resolution 218-13 in 2013: Resolution condemning recent statements by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto claiming that the system of sex slavery utilized by Japan in occupied Asian countries from the 1930s through World War II was a military necessity and that there is no proof that the sexual servitude was involuntary and coerced by Japanese authorities.
Resolution 342-15 in 2015: Urging the establishment for a “Comfort Women” Memorial and to educate the community about stopping global human trafficking of women and girls.
We contacted President Walton and he agreed to be the main sponsor of the resolution. On April 6th, it was passed unanimously.
This is another great victory for historical truth, and women and human rights. In a time of fake news and historical revisionism (denialism!), it’s important that we fight back on all fronts to create an atmosphere that will ensure the truth prevails.
We are grateful to Supervisor Walton and all the board for passing this resolution.
CWJC hosts memorial for fallen victims of Anti-Asian violence in Atlanta
CWJC hosts memorial for fallen victims of Anti-Asian violence in Atlanta
On March 16th, Mr. Robert Aaron Long killed 8 people in three incidents in Atlanta and its environs. Seven of the women were of Asian descent and worked in spas. Those who were killed were: Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69; Yong Yue, 63; Delaina Ashely Yaun Gonzalez, 33; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 49; and Paul Andre Michels; 54.
CWJC responded by issuing a statement and then holding a memorial/vigil to the victims on March 27th at St. Mary’s Square.
Part of our statement reads:
This was also a targeted killing of Asian women. Thus, it was a hate crime of both white and male supremacy and should be denounced as such. There is a long history of fetishizing Asian women for their sexuality. Colonial Orientalism with its hyper sexualization has viewed women from Asia as “mysterious” and “possessing secrets” that western men can’t resist and have to possess. When Mr. Long claimed that he had to target the women in Atlanta for his own “sex addiction’” he was just the latest white man to claim he just couldn’t “help himself,” and that the women were responsible for his own mental health. Killing because of gender is also a hate crime.
In addition, there has been an element of victim shaming of those who were killed. Because these migrant women worked in spas, somehow they were partly to blame.
We, in CWJC, understand this stigmatization and the urge to justify sexual violence only too well. It was used over and over again to explain the sexual enslavement of hundreds of thousands of women in the Japanese Imperial Army’s system of “comfort stations” during WWII. We also understand the relationship between sexual violence and militarism and war as well as their relationship to migration.
Standing in the shadow of the comfort women memorial, and surrounded by flowers, the vigil which was also co-sponsored by the Jin Duck & Kyung Sik Kim Foundation, began with prayer from Pastor Soobok Lee of the Korean Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, followed by a blessing from Susanna Yee (whose own grandmother died from such an attack in 2020). The meeting remembered the victims and denounced the escalating violence.
Speakers including Police Chief Bill Scott, Assemblyman David Chu, Senator Scott Wiener and Supervisors Gordon Mar and Myrna Melgar demanded an end to the racism and hatred towards Asian Americans.
After the vigil, participants joined the march through Chinatown to Union Square where thousands attended a rally sponsored by the Chinese community. MC’d by CWJC co-chairs Julie Tang and Lillian Sing, it was again joined by public officials including Mayor London Breed, community members, and young hip hop artists – all denouncing the escalating racism and violence against Asians in America.
