Ask the sculptors of the comfort girl statue (the Statue of Peace)— Who cut the girl’s hair?

Ask the sculptors of the comfort girl statue (the Statue of Peace)—
Who cut the girl’s hair?
[The 25th Press Conference by People’s Action]
April 7, 2021

The sculptors of the comfort girl statue, Kim Eun-sung and Kim Seo-kyung, stated in their sculptors’ note that “these old women confessed in 1991 onward that they were forcibly abducted and coerced into Japanese military comfort women and condemned to the world the cruelty of Japan’s invasive war and its audacity with which they degraded little girls into sex slaves.”

The couple further stated that they intended to have the Statue tell the history of war crimes committed by Japan with force and national mobilization, sending little girls to the front and violently and sexually abusing the victims without hesitation, and by placing the Statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in South Korea, have Japan face its shameful history.

Referring to the girl’s short hair, the couple explained: The place where the deceived girls arrived was not a factory but a strange place in a foreign land—a comfort station within a Japanese army unit. Girls had their long hair cut short, for their hair was useless. Thus, their bond with their family and hometown was cut and gone with the hair. The girl could see her parents only in her dreams and no one around her called her by her name. In this manner, regardless of the girl’s will, the severance of the bond is expressed by her hair cut short.

However, the circumstance alleged by the couple is a lie and a fabrication. It was not the Japanese Army that cut the bond between the girl and her parents.

The Kims state that they condemn the cruelty of Japan’s invasion and the audacity with which Japan turned little girls into sex slaves. They, therefore owe a clear explanation and account of what little girls have to do with the “cruelty of Japan’s invasion” and how the Japanese Army made little girls sex slaves and how it was possible to make them sex slaves when it was fundamentally impossible for little girls to become Japanese military comfort women.

Even in the case of adult comfort women, rather than girls, they were prostitutes who worked in exchange for a fee that was set by regulations for each comfort station. The Japanese Army was a customer that bought sex from comfort women, duly paying the fee for their time. Mr. and Mrs. Kim must explain how comfort women were “Japanese military sex slaves.”

What this couple say about the “situation of comfort women” is a lie, which can be confirmed by the statements comfort women put in a Collection of Testimonies, published by the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan.

Kim Hak-sun, who was the first to come forth and confess that she used to be a comfort woman and provided the basis of the “Day to Celebrate Comfort Women Victims,” was sold by her foster father for 40 yen. After this, she completed two-years of education at a gisaeng school in Pyongyang and she went to China with her foster father to earn money. On the day of her departure, her mother bought her a yellow sweater and came to see her off at Pyongyang Station.

Ms. Lee Yong Soo, who contradicted her own stories, was nicknamed “Morning Change, Evening Revise,” stated from the first that she was fascinated by a red dress and leather shoes given to her by a man and followed him without knowing what was going on. The man took her and other girls from Daegu, South Korea to a comfort station in Taiwan. The man was the master of the comfort station. They called the man oyaji (“big man”). What, pray tell, could this man called oyaji, have been other than a master of a comfort station, a procurer of girls.

Ms. Kim Bok-dong, who was awarded the Order of Civil Merit, the Moran (peony) Medal, as a former comfort woman, stated that she followed an imposter pretending to be a public officer working for the Volunteers’ Corps. She received her parents’ seal of approval.

According to Ms. Gil Won-ok, who attended a gisaeng school in Pyongyang , was sold to a butcher for 20 Won at the age of 13, went to Manchuria, worked at a brothel for two years, contracted venereal disease and returned home. Back at home, she worked at a factory for a while. Then, at the age of 15, she crossed the Yalu River again with a friend from the gisaeng School to earn money. When Ms. Gil left her home, her mother gave her a green skirt and a red jeogori (jacket), despite their state of poverty.

Besides these four women, of the 240 Japanese military comfort women victims listed at the South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, who were abducted by the Japanese Army and who had their bonds with their parents severed by the Japanese Army? Do Mr. and Mrs. Kim know who sold their little daughters as if they were commodities, who urged their daughters’ onto the departing trains and who prepared beautiful chima jeogori (traditional Korean clothes) for them?

Allegedly, during the process of planning the comfort girl statue, the couple continued to talk with their little daughter about comfort girls while working on the statue.

After all, the Kims taught a lie, not the truth to their 11 year-old daughter, about the adult world of prostitutes, and created a statue of a comfort girl as a symbol of distortion and hatred.

Therefore, we ask the Kims:

Who cut the bond between her parents and the girl?

Do you not fear of your evil distortion and fabrication of comfort women?

Are you not ashamed of yourselves, to your own little daughter?