Comfort Women

This post is in response to Jeremiah's collage and his last post. Also, this relates somewhat to Francesca's project.

I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with Comfort Women. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, young women were forced to perform sexual services on Japanese military in "comfort stations." Skip to today: The surviving women have recently started speaking out after 50+ years. They are demanding an apology from the Japanese government. Japan refuses to acknowledge any wrong doing. I lived in Korea for 2.5 years and every Wednesday the survivors and other supporters would peacefully demonstrate outside of the Japanese Embassy. They vowed to be there every week until the Prime Minister issued a formal apology.

Amnesty International supports the cause and last year created an interactive website where people could also show their support. Donations were accepted as well, but mainly it was just to show support. People were directed to a program that allowed you to create your own butterfly for the Comfort Women. (Here is the website) You chose the style, color and also controlled the swirl pattern using your mouse. After, people were asked to set the butterflies as their facebook or myspace...etc. profile picture. This was the butterfly I made last year. This article talks about the outcome of the project.