What History Books Don't Tell You

Story #1: The essence of comfort - The Philippines

Comment if your country has been represented!

Laying on my back reminded me of the woman that I was forced to be. Naked. Exposed. Waiting for the next dog to attack me and take away my innocence, my strength, my endurance, my resilience, my perseverance. Even if I was lying on my back trying to fall asleep, whether I was trying to relax my lower back muscles – it was deeply linked to pain. I grew accustomed to the pain, that it was easy for me to talk about it, what it is like being a Lola. But that's the worst thing about being a Lola. No one knew what we were or what we stood for. 

So now I am going to tell you the truth, the truth that no one wants to talk about anymore: during the Second World War. The Japanese proved their strength and emotionlessness – they invaded many countries – the Philippines, China, Malaysia, me. 

What happened that day sounds nothing like the truth to any other person. That's the issue with stories – no one believes the accuracy of stories. No one's memory is consistent, and neither is anyone's ability to narrate their story, everything we say is unreliable. My unreliability to narrate what I endured makes me a liar but believe me when I say that I'm telling the truth. I am not just blaming Japan, I am talking about many other countries like them, but I have no need to gain knowledge of such countries. 

This is the truth. There were many women like me and men, too. We may have been preteens at the time, thirteen to eighteen or even older, but there were young boys who had to endure sodomy. Of course, to fit the needs of homosexual men or men who wanted to try new things. Even trying new things is associated with pain, do you feel what I feel now? 

Aunt warned me not to go. "You don't need to collect firewood," she said, but she never gave me a reason why. That's the problem with being a woman. You know the 'truth', you know the issue at hand, you know the underlying problem, but you have no power, absolutely no power to do anything. Truth be told, even if Aunt told me why I shouldn't go, I would've still gone. This reduces the validity of my story again, the fact that I was so ignorant and stubborn at the time doesn't allow anyone to believe me. Even though she didn't warn me about anything, I used my age as defence and said to her, "Nobody would attack a 12-year-old". 

I went with my four cousin brothers and since I was twelve at the time, I was their leader, their older sister. We were having fun, a lot of fun – I misused my power of being the oldest and made them hop on their left feet and hobble all the way. I sniffed at berries on the way, unmoved by them arguing and shouting. But then my instincts kicked in and I turned. There were two soldiers standing with long, long rifles. This wasn't the first time that I encountered soldiers with ammunition, but there was something awfully wrong. That's probably what prevented me from going back to them and asking what was wrong. I stood there, frozen, as though I was caught for sniffing berries in the woods. One soldier said something unfamiliar to his companion, and his companion, in turn, aimed his gun at my youngest cousin. I knew what he meant. I bowed down my head, as though in prayer, and walked towards them, towards the soldiers, not my cousins. 

And this is where my memory fades a little, trying to recall the events feels like rubbing two stones against each other and watching the sparks, -clash- one memory, and before you can comprehend what was happening, -clash- another memory. I was always lying on my back, getting attacked by one man or maybe three, and –clash- I was seated with many young girls like me, eating rice with chilli, as poor farmers do. We exchanged names, we shared food, we braided each other's hair, but we never spoke about what we endured. Even if one of us came in with a bloodied lip and a black eye, we simply dressed the wounds and fed the girl. They were my hope, my only reason for enduring this. "What if I hang myself?" One of us asked. "The bedsheets are always on the bed. I can tear it up and hang myself from the ceiling." But there was always someone who said, "No. Why don't you try throwing it out of the window?" 

And so, one of us did try it. She threw the knotted sheet outside the window and climbed down. She tried tugging the sheet along with her and she failed. So, she ran all the way back home. She did make it home, but none of us knew if she was still at home, or if she was on the streets. One of us said, "She probably came back." And one of us said, "Much better than going home."

I wanted to go back home so bad. I ripped the sheets in two and began knotting them together. Nobody noticed that the sheet from my bed was missing. Only –clash- closed eyes and gritted teeth and –clashstaring upwards, as though thanking God and –clash- another two men arguing and then –clash- laying on the bed as though dead. But my dream to go home was fulfilled. I was very skinny, so when I was pregnant, it was very evident. I didn't understand the language, but I knew the man said that he wouldn't have anything to do with a pregnant woman, a child is at stake. I wanted to laugh – I was a child too. So, I was sent home; I was so happy. The child, this unborn child gave me so much hope and happiness. 

But there was a reason why one of us said, "Much better than going home." When one of us got to escape or got released because we either lost our appeal due to old age or pregnancy, when we were home, we were discriminated against. The truth is, we let ourselves endure this, so our family would be safe. "My child is a Lola, a comfort woman," they could say, and they would be left alone. "No more girls?" They would ask. Another girl was always welcome. 

Coming back home was worse than being a comfort woman. I lost my first child before I could even tell my Aunt that I was pregnant. It's better to forget the past than recount it. You know the truth now. 

So why haven't we got help? News coverage and a feminist who wants our rights to be given to us have asked us the same thing. We don't know for ourselves. All we know is that countries who suffered at Japan's feet benefit from good trade agreements because they vowed long ago to keep this silence. After all, the family of the person who made the law didn't suffer as we did. And we were called comfort women rather than sex slaves because euphemisms always seem to make things sound so much better than what we endured. But we did suffer only so the trade could continue. I'm not saying anything about the trade for women though, or has the truth really begun to ring in your ears? 

Reference

Philippines

In the Philippines, comfort women formed different groups, similar to the Korean survivors they are called "Lolas" (grandmothers). One group named "Lila Pilipina" (League of Filipino Women), which started in 1992 and is a member of a feminist organization, together with the (Free grandmothers) ask for a formal apology from the Japanese government, compensation, and the inclusion of the issue in the Japanese history textbooks. These groups also ask the Philippine government to back their claims against the Japanese government. These groups have taken legal actions against Japan, then against their own government to back their claims and, as of August 2014, planned to take the case the UN (CEDAW).

These groups have made demonstrations in front of the Japanese embassy on many occasions have given testimonies to Japanese tourists in Manila.

Similar to the Korean grandmothers, Filipino "Lolas" have their own Grandmother house with a collection of their testimonies. Also, two of them have published two autobiographic books: Comfort Woman: Slave of Destiny by and The Hidden Battle of Leyte: The Picture Diary of a Girl Taken by the Japanese Military by Remedios Felias. This second book was written in the 1990s after Lila Filipina was formed.

A villa house was seized by Japanese soldiers during WWII and it was used as comfort station where Filipino women were raped and held as comfort women. Today, the empty house is still standing as a memorial for the forgotten Filipino comfort women.