As hundreds of thousands of women held rallies across the country in solidarity, we can’t help but think of our own fight to bring justice to our very special group of women.  Before the modern women’s movement, before #MeToo, one of the largest atrocities against the female gender was against the “Comfort Women” during the 1930’s and 1940’s.  Hundreds of thousands of women enslaved for sex by Japan and if you follow our movement, you know our mission is to get Japan to accept responsibility for their actions before all the “Comfort Women” are gone.

It’s a 70-year-old fight and even though it happened in far away Asia, the abuse and rape that occurred happens in every country to women on a daily basis.  What makes the “Comfort Women’s” experience so shocking is the systematic way Japan went about it to control and rape the women as part of a military plan.  Even in 2018, South Korea and Japan are still in discussions, debate about this issue and it continues to make headlines. What’s most disheartening, from Japan’s side, they are trying to slowly rewrite history and pretend it never happened.

Which brings us to our most important point:  It’s been so difficult to get sustained media coverage and attention on this issue especially here in the U.S.  The Asian community in various cities especially in San Francisco have helped support this cause but this isn’t an Asia issue, it’s a world issue, it’s a women’s issue.  If the “Comfort Women” were part of the current #MeToo movement and it was revealed that they were raped 40 times a day, how would the world react?  The “Comfort Women” had no social media, no television cameras, no celebrities to support their cause but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get justice.  It means, we need to help them find their voice on a world scale and there is no bigger voice for women than in the U.S.  When hundreds of thousands can march across the U.S., that doesn’t happen in any other country in the world.  That’s why we need your help.  When you listen to the “Comfort Women’s” stories and you see the tears fall down their face as they think back over seven decades ago, you realize the pain is still there and why we must be there for them.  It means putting pressure on Japan to do the right thing for these women.  However, it will take more than the Asian communities, it will take help from all women and men who understand that sexual abuse can not be ignored no matter how much time has passed.  So please, join our movement because if we get justice for these women, it will show the world, we care about all women whether it’s in Chicago or Seoul.  That’s something to march about.