Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett
When thinking how miserable our lives are, think of sex slaves, gang-raped children.
Comfort children
Two hundred thousand women, at least that number, in their childhood and youth were forced into sexual slavery during World War II. These women — girls as young as 10 and 15 — were abducted then gang raped daily.
The Japanese army kidnapped Yi Okseon and sent her to China to become a sex slave (a “comfort woman”), Radio Netherlands notes this week in its airing of “The State We’re In.” Yi Okseon was 15 years old. They subjected her to three years as a sex slave, sometimes requiring her to “service more than fifty Japanese soldiers” a day.
Japanese historian Hirofumi Hayashi uncovered in 2007 official documents confirming that the Japanese government was directly involved in forcing women across Asia into sexual slavery. Yi Okseon is now in her 80s and is still waiting for a full apology from the Japanese government.
Human trafficking museum “Journey” in The Hague October 14-24
A dramatic installation bringing together creativity and the art of survival to show what it means to be bought, sold and exploited, “Journey” demonstrates how one woman’s story can help us understand a subject that is as painful as it is incomprehensible.
Its most powerful and shocking container is ‘Bedroom’ depicting “the kind of dingy room in which trafficked women are forced to service up to 40 or 50 men a day. The filthy bed squeaks as if sex were taking place, the groans of a man are audible, and a pungent stench of vomit, urine, semen and sweat overpowers visitors.”
“Journey” is comprised of seven shipping containers that describe each stage of the trafficking victim’s experience.
Internationally acclaimed actor and human rights activist Emma Thompson, associated with the Helen Bamber Foundation, opened The Hague exhibition of “Journey” based on the story of Elena, a young woman of 18 who was trafficked from Moldova to England and forced into prostitution.
Human trafficking is torture, Thompson says, “and not enough people know about it. Not enough governments have enough information about the practice to be able to prosecute the perpetrators. It’s a huge and hidden area and all of us need to take action now.”
Eighty-five “comfort women” from the Second World War era are believed to be alive and waiting. Human Trafficking is a crime without borders, crime without statutes of limitations.
Sources and notes
Helen Bamber Foundation notes
Journey The Hague in support of the Helen Bamber Foundation aims to bring the reality of the sex trafficking industry to the forefront of social consciousness and empower people to take action.
Shackles bind perpetrators to victims, and victims to the punters [customers, patrons] who exploit them. The links extend to every level of society even to the organizations that care for the victims. They extend down the halls of governments that pledge to act and pass laws to stamp out trafficking. The links form an invisible chain that binds us all together. It is the chain of modern day slavery, http://www.helenbamber.org/AboutJourney.html
Journey is on display at Plein, The Hague, through October 24, 2010, The arrival of Journey in The Hague coincides with the ten-year anniversary of The Office of the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings.
Journey is a dramatic installation that brings together creativity and the art of survival to show what it means to be bought, sold and exploited. It demonstrates how one woman’s story can help us understand a subject that is as painful as it is incomprehensible.
Trafficking is a crime without borders. Trafficked people become illegal, stigmatized and invisible. Because of its status as a political, legal and human rights focused capital, The Hague is ideal for giving these issues a worldwide platform, http://www.helenbamber.org/Journey_Hague.html
The Helen Bamber Foundation is a UK-based human rights organization, formed in April 2005 to help rebuild lives and inspire a new self-esteem in survivors of gross human rights violations, http://www.helenbamber.org/OurPurpose.html
Radio Netherlands Worldwide
“Emma Thompson opens human trafficking exhibition in The Hague.” October 15, 2010, http://www.rnw.nl/english/video/emma-thompson-opens-human-trafficking-exhibition-hague
The Hague exhibition ‘Journey’ coincides with the 10th anniversary of the establishment of a Dutch National Rapporteur on the Trafficking of Human Beings and a debate in the Dutch parliament about the crime. It comes on the eve of the European Day against Human Trafficking.
The State We’re In — ‘For the record,’ October 16, 2010, http://www.rnw.nl/english/radioshow/record
Britannica note
The Republic of Moldova lying in the northeastern corner of the Balkan region is bordered by Ukraine on the north, east, and south and Romania on the west. England is bounded on the north by Scotland; on the west by the Irish Sea, Wales, and the Atlantic Ocean; on the south by the English Channel; and on the east by the North Sea.
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