Kim Hak-sun

Kim Hak-sun
Born1924
Died1997 (aged 72–73)
Korean name
Hangul
김학순
Hanja
Revised RomanizationGim Haksun
McCune–ReischauerKim Haksun

Kim Hak-sun (1924–1997) was a Korean human rights activist who campaigned against sex slavery and wartime sexual violence. Kim was one of the victims who had been forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army between the early 1930s up until the end of the Pacific War.[1][clarification needed] She is the first woman in Korea to come forward publicly and testify her experience as a comfort woman for the Japanese military.[2][3][4] Her testimony was made on 14 August 1991. In December 1991, she filed a class-action lawsuit against the Japanese government for the damages inflicted during the war.[5] She was the first of what would become hundreds of women from Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Netherlands who came forward to tell their stories of their enslavement to the Imperial Japanese military.[2] She was inspired to finally take her story public after 40 years of silence by the growth of the women's rights movement in South Korea.[2] Kim died in 1997 and her court case was still ongoing.

  1. ^ Keith Howard, ed. (1995). True stories of the Korean comfort women : testimonies. Contributors: Han'guk Chŏngsindae Munje Taech'aek Hyŏbŭihoe., Chŏngsindae Yŏnʼguhoe (Korea). London: Cassell. ISBN 0304332623. OCLC 36008713.
  2. ^ a b c Kazue, Muta (July 2016). "The 'comfort women' issue and the embedded culture of sexual violence in contemporary Japan". Current Sociology. 64 (4): 620–636. doi:10.1177/0011392116640475. ISSN 0011-3921. S2CID 148282916.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ McCarthy, Mary M; Hasunuma, Linda C. (2018). "Coalition building and mobilization: case studies of the comfort women memorials in the United States". Politics, Groups, and Identities. 6 (3): 411–434. doi:10.1080/21565503.2018.1491865. S2CID 158326944.
  5. ^ Soh, Chunghee Sarah (1996). "The Korean "Comfort Women": Movement for Redress". Asian Survey. 36 (12): 1226–1240. doi:10.2307/2645577. ISSN 0004-4687. JSTOR 2645577.