This statue aims for peace and understanding, but can’t find a home

The consulate-general of Japan in Melbourne said in a statement that the “comfort women issue, including individual claims” had been legally settled.

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In a meeting of foreign ministers in 2015, Japan and the Republic of Korea reached an agreement to resolve the issue “finally and irreversibly”, and in 2016, the Japanese government contributed 1 billion yen ($12.3 million) to 35 out of 47 former comfort women who were still alive at the time. But consequent lawsuits have been filed by former comfort women and others against the Japanese government.

The consulate-general said claims of groups that promoted the installation of the comfort women statues included expressions such as “sex slaves”, which it said was “not supported by historical evidence”.

“We are concerned that the installation of such statues will create division and conflict, leaving wounds in local communities which previously enjoyed peaceful relations,” it said.

It also says there is no official figure for the number of comfort women, nor documents the Japanese government could identify about comfort women being forcefully taken away by military or government authorities.

Former comfort women have spoken in the recently released documentary The Last Daughters about being captured by Japanese soldiers and forced into sexual slavery.

Christine Kim, secretary of Friends of Comfort Women in Melbourne, told ABC it was difficult to get council approval to display comfort women statues in public.

“They are usually reluctant as they perceive the peace statue to be political and controversial – not wanting to offend the Japanese community or show support for one particular community,” said Kim.

Speaking at Saturday’s event, Kim told the 100-strong crowd the statues were reminders “that we must come together, put our differences aside” for the justice of comfort women and to create a brighter, safer future.

The Korean Society of Victoria installed its own statue depicting a comfort woman outside its Oakleigh headquarters in 2019.

Li had originally hoped the Chinese association’s statue would sit side by side with the Korean comfort woman, but opposition within the Korean Society of Victoria community has led Li to find another site.

Hoon Yoo, of the Korean Society of Victoria, said that while he supported a public display of comfort women of different nationalities, the community was divided about using the Korean site for the Chinese statue.

Yoo said some community members felt a Chinese comfort woman statue would be more appropriate on property owned by the Chinese community.He said the society was unaware that Saturday’s event at the Korean site was the unveiling of the statue.

Monash University associate professor of Japanese studies Beatrice Trefalt said it had become complicated because Australian public spaces could get stuck between Korean, Chinese and Japanese governments “and so it ends up being that nobody wants to touch it, which is a terrible shame”.

She said what should be about sexual violence as a war crime instead becomes “tied in to questions of national image and power, which relegates the suffering of those women”.

A Korean community member, who asked not to give her name, said not all the Korean community agreed with the comfort woman statue that was already outside the society’s building.

“It stirs up a lot of emotions that are understandably still there for many, and there are some in the community that acknowledge that but don’t want to have that presentation there every day to remind us of the past,” she said.

“We would like to focus on rebuilding for the future, rebuilding the relationships for the future,” she said.

But Li said public display was essential because it acknowledged the suffering endured by women during the war.

“The pain of war is still deeply felt, and we hope these memorials will help future generations understand how precious peace is and why it must be protected,” he said.