That is the second museum and archive in China and the fourth worldwide, dedicated to exhibiting, researching, and documenting the comfort women issue, serving as a living testimony of the biggest sexual war crime ever happened in history. The first archives opened in Japan in 2005, the second in South Korea, and the third in Nanjing, China. The term Comfort Women is related to more than 200,000 girls and women from China, New Guinea, Burma, the Philippines, and Korea, who before and during WW2, were abducted from their homes, held in captivity at front-line brothels by the Japanese army, forcing them into sexual slavery. They lived in inhuman conditions, suffered violence and rape daily. The museum opened on October 22nd, 2016, the same day a Comfort Women statue was unveiled on the Shanghai Normal University grounds. In the museum, there are 48 display boards and 80 exhibits that include original items and artifacts donated by the victims and their families, some were collected from brothel stations. The research center holds written and recorded testimonials of Chinese comfort women and documents on the 158 comfort stations in Shanghai and 67 stations in southern Hainan Province. Recent researches show that there were 200,000 comfort women in China only. Both the museum and the statue are the effort of Su Zhiliang, a professor at Shanghai Normal University and head of research on the issue of comfort women. Read more...

That is the second statue outside South Korea that honors the Comfort Women. It is the same statue as the first statue that faces the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, but this one depicts two young girls, one Korean and the second Chinees. They are sitting, and next to them is an empty chair. Comfort Women is a euphemistic term given to more than 200,000 girls and women from China, New Guinea, Burma, the Philippines, and Korea, who during WW2 were kidnapped from their homes, trafficked, and held in captivity at front-line brothels by the Japanese army. They were sex slaves and suffered from violence, rape and lived in inhuman conditions. These crimes got worldwide attention only in 1991, when Kim Hak-sun, a comfort woman survivor, testified for the first time on her experiences as a Korean comfort woman. This testimony opened the subject worldwide, and in China, movies and books led to increased public awareness and the establishment of a museum and several statues. Su Zhiliang, a professor at Shanghai Normal University and an expert on the issue of comfort women, led to the erection of the statue. He also promoted the Comfort Women’s Museum and Archives that opened the same day the sculptures were dedicated, on October 22nd, 2016. Two of the few remaining survivors attended the dedication ceremony – Lee Yoon-soo (88) and Chen Liancun (90). They were very excited to get some recognition for the crimes they had suffered. Read more...