"Comfort women" survivor and others issue joint statement to condemn Ramseyer

The statement presents a point-by-point critique of Ramseyer's article

Former comfort woman Lee Ok-seon sheds a tear during the 1,395th Wednesday Demonstration in front of the former Japanese Embassy in Seoul. (Baek So-ah)

A new statement signed by 36 people, including former comfort woman Lee Ok-seon, aged 94, calls on J. Mark Ramseyer, professor at Harvard Law School, to refrain from historical inventions and distortions.

Ramseyer has been roundly condemned for an academic paper in which he describes the “comfort women,” or women forced to work in the Japanese army’s network of military brothels in World War II, as having been voluntary prostitutes.

The statement, released Tuesday by Sejong University Professor Yuji Hosaka, is titled “Professor John Ramseyer’s Paper is Nothing Less than Infringement of Human Rights under the Guise of Academic Freedom.”

The statement was sent to various figures, including US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow, South Korean National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug and the editor of the academic journal that is printing Ramseyer’s paper.

Along with Lee Ok-seon, the 36 signatories included Kim Won-woong, chairman of the Heritage of Korean Independence, and Song Young-gil and Yang Hyang-ja, both lawmakers with the Democratic Party.

The statement presented a point-by-point critique of Ramseyer’s article.

“Many women were forcibly conscripted by the Japanese military or deceived with job offers into becoming sex slaves of the Japanese military. These included not only Japanese women but also Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Southeast Asian, and even Dutch and German women.”

“Nevertheless, Professor Ramseyer has written a paper falsely asserting that the Japanese government and military were not involved, and that the women and brothel owners had signed contracts for their mutual profit. In this paper, he has made the critically erroneous statement that the Japanese military’s comfort women were all voluntary prostitutes while giving an overly broad interpretation of the status of the prostitution industry in Japan.”

“It is particularly noteworthy that these errors may surpass simple academic errors and may intentionally correspond with the views of certain political forces.”

The statement also argues that Ramseyer’s paper should not be printed in an academic journal.

“The ‘prostitution contracts’ themselves that Ramseyer mentions did not exist for comfort women, and all these women were forced or deceived into their roles and unable to escape. This is a historical truth that can only be considered sexual slavery.”

“Professor Ramseyer’s paper, which ignores these historical facts, goes beyond the boundaries of academic freedom and contains abundant violations of the human rights of victims to the point that it should have been deemed unpublishable. We consider it appropriate for the journal containing his paper to reevaluate it.”

“The game theory Ramseyer uses to explain the issue of the comfort women is unsuitable for a discussion of historical facts. Such theory declaring that both parties signed contracts for mutual benefit cannot be applied to sex crimes.”

“This fabrication and distortion of historical facts by Ramseyer and the Japanese far-right and new pro-Japanese forces within Korea who support him must end now. Furthermore, the Korean National Assembly must quickly revise the Law Prohibiting Distortion of the Comfort Women Issue. The American Historical Association should also thoroughly review Ramseyer’s paper.”

By Jeon Gwang-joon, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]