EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE FOUNDATION
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          • SEATIC Psychological Warfare Bulletin No. 182
          • G-3 Daily Dairy
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          • Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) No. 470
          • Research Report No. 120: Amenities in the Japanese Armed Forces
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              • Resolution 158-25A1
            • Chronology: Teaching "Comfort Women" History from the 1990s to Present
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        • Secondary Source Documents and ESJF Statements >
          • Secondary Resource References
          • ESJF Statement on the South Korea Court’s ruling, April 21, 2021
          • ESJF Statement on the South Korea Court’s ruling, January 8, 2021
          • International Joint Statement, August 14, 2019
          • International Joint Statement, March 1, 2019
          • International Joint Statement, October 6, 2018
          • International Joint Statement, January 7, 2018
        • Reflections on Collective Activism in SF >
          • Reflection and Chronology: Eric Mar
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        • International "Comfort Women" Day >
          • 30th Anniversary of Kim Hak-Soon Halmoni's public testimony >
            • Kim Hak-Soon Halmoni
        • 2000 Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery
        • 2015 "Comfort Women" Agreement
        • 2017 Special Task Force Report on 2015 "Comfort Women" Agreement between S. Korea and Japan
        • UNESCO and the "Voices of the 'Comfort Women'" >
          • Timeline
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        • Historic Lawsuits related to Japanese military sexual slavery before and during WWII >
          • Sung Sohn's Essay with commentaries and statement
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          • First Video Footage of Mass Murdered "Comfort Women": Feb. 2018
          • Life as a "Comfort Woman": Story of Kim Bok-Dong
          • Meet Estelita Dy: A Filipino "Comfort Woman" Survivor
          • 2015 "Comfort Women" Agreement and Victims' Reaction
          • 2018 International "Comfort Women" Day
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Timeline
1992: UNESCO established the Memory of the World (MOW) Program 
 
2011: U.S. cuts UNESCO funding for the U.N. cultural agency, after its member countries approved a Palestinian bid for full membership in the body. The U.S. provided about 22 percent of its budget, making the U.S. the largest funding source. Japan, which was the country providing the second-most support (about 10%), became the country to provide the most. Currently, China provides the largest funding (about 15%) followed by Japan (about 11%). 
 
2013: South Korean activists and scholars began discussion on the inscription of “comfort women”-related documents as MOW
 
March 2014: China submitted two related applications to the UNESCO MOW Programme: documents of the Nanjing Massacre and archives about “comfort women” for Japanese troops.
 
November 2014: The South Korean team was established to work on applying for the MOW inscription “Japanese Military ‘Comfort Women’ Supporting and Memorial Project.” The project team, headed by Heisoo Shin, was established under the Women’s Human Rights Institute (WHRI) of South Korea. WHRI provided the office space and partial funding is under the supervision of the South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MoGEF).
 
April 2015: Korean Committee for Joint Nomination composed of six civil society organizations from six cities was formed
 
May 21, 2015: 14 groups from countries, including Korea, Japan, China, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Indonesia, and East Timor, organized the International Committee for Joint Nomination (ICJN) of Documents on the Japanese Military “Comfort Women” to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

October 2015: UNESCO announced that the nomination of “Documents of the Nanjing Massacre” was approved for inscription, but deferred the decision on the ones related to “comfort women.” The assessors suggested China join the multinational “comfort women”-related nomination.
 
December 15, 2015: Second ICJN meeting held in Seoul.
 
December 28, 2015: Two Ministers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from South Korea and Japan announce the “Comfort Women” agreement between South Korea and Japan.
 
                               After the agreement: WHRI ordered ICJN to vacate the office and discontinued governmental financial support. Financial support from
                               the South Korean government resumed after President Moon Jae-in’s government was sworn into office on May 10, 2017. 

Nov. 2015 to Feb. 2016:  Two Dutch institutions (the National Archives of the Netherlands in the Hague and NIOD - Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam); two in Australia (the National Archives of Australia and Australian War Memorial); and the Imperial War Museum in
London gave permission for the inclusion of their documents in the nomination.
 
May 2016: Just a day or days before ICJN submitted documents, three right-wing groups in Japan and one group in the U.S. submitted an application to register in the UNESCO Memory of the World Program. Their documents consisted of four categories: 1) A series of U.S. documents reporting the interrogation of Japanese prisoners of war, kept at NARA; 2) An official letter issued in 1945 by the Home Ministry of Japan to the police, held by the National Archives of Japan; 3) An order issued by the Ministry of the Army in 1938, held by the National Institute for Defense Studies; and 4) A collection of testimonies of returned military persons and civilians published from 1996 to 2007 held by the Institution of Research of Policy on Media and Broadcasting.
 
Their main reasons for nomination were that “the ‘comfort women’ system was a state-regulated legal prostitution organization” and that “the ‘comfort women’ were recruited by private agents and were well remunerated for their services.”
 
May 31, 2016: ICJN, consisting of 14 civil society nominators from eight countries, submitted an application for the “Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’” to be added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Program with a total of 2,744 documents comprised of three categories: 1) 563 official and private documents concerning the Japanese military “comfort women” system; 2) 1,449 documents relating to “comfort women,” including their testimonies; and 3) 732 documents indicating the efforts to resolve “comfort women” issues. This submission was considered the largest nomination proposal in its size of the archive in the history of the MOW Program.
 
Their main reasons for the submission were that “the ‘comfort women’ were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military” and were “enslaved in ‘comfort stations’ established inside or around Japanese military camps.”
 
October 2017: The International Advisory Committee (IAC) of UNESCO's Memory of the World (MOW) Program “postponed” the ICJN application pending “dialogue” between the applicants and the Japanese government. The revised criteria state that when an application is contested, applicants need to “talk” through a third party.

IAC’s recommendations to the Director-General: “The International Advisory Committee of the Memory of the World Program, following the decision of the Executive Board of UNESCO in its meeting on 16 October 2017 (202 EX/PX/DR 15.8, item 15), recommends to the Director-General that UNESCO facilitates a dialogue among the nominators of the nominations “Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’” and “Documentation on ‘Comfort Women’ and Japanese Army discipline” and concerned parties. The IAC also recommends setting a place and time convenient to the parties for this dialogue, with a view to leading to a joint nomination to encompass as far as possible all relevant documents.”
 
2018: An arbitrator was appointed but resigned a year later
 
2019: A second arbitrator was appointed
 
2020: ICJN holds a meeting with an arbitrator
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  • Home
    • About Us >
      • Social Justice Education
      • Advocacy >
        • International Community Outreach >
          • Chiba Korean Elementary Middle School >
            • Our First Advocacy
            • ESJF Student Art Competition
            • ESJF Statement: “After ‘Lack of Freedom of Expression?’” Shut Down to Suppress Freedom of Expression
            • Letter to Aichi Prefectural Triennale Promotion Office
          • Days for Girls International
        • Civil Society
    • Blog
    • Interviews and articles
  • Educator Resources
    • Sexual and Gender-based Violence >
      • Japanese military sexual slavery system >
        • Brief Historical Background
        • Lesson Plans and Worksheets >
          • ​In Their Own Words
          • Resistance & Collective activism
          • Denial of legal and historical responsibility
          • ​Remembering and honoring "comfort women"
          • Global plague
          • Contemporary movements towards justice
          • Worksheets
          • Puzzles
        • 2017 CA H-SS Framework >
          • Basic questions surrounding the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery System
        • Map of "Comfort Women" Memorials in the United States
        • Survivors' Testimonies & Legacies >
          • Korea
          • China
          • Philippines
          • Indonesia
          • Japan
          • Netherlands
        • Primary Source Documents: "Comfort Women" History and Issues >
          • Concerning the Recruitment of Women for Military Comfort Stations
          • Psychological Warfare Interrogation Report No. 49
          • Psychological Warfare Interrogation Bulletin No. 2
          • SEATIC Psychological Warfare Bulletin No. 182
          • G-3 Daily Dairy
          • C.B.I. Roundup
          • Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) No. 470
          • Research Report No. 120: Amenities in the Japanese Armed Forces
          • San Francisco Local History >
            • Resolutions >
              • Resolution 158-25A1
            • Chronology: Teaching "Comfort Women" History from the 1990s to Present
          • Images
        • Secondary Source Documents and ESJF Statements >
          • Secondary Resource References
          • ESJF Statement on the South Korea Court’s ruling, April 21, 2021
          • ESJF Statement on the South Korea Court’s ruling, January 8, 2021
          • International Joint Statement, August 14, 2019
          • International Joint Statement, March 1, 2019
          • International Joint Statement, October 6, 2018
          • International Joint Statement, January 7, 2018
        • Reflections on Collective Activism in SF >
          • Reflection and Chronology: Eric Mar
          • Reflection: Steven Whyte & Ellen Wilson
          • Reflection: Sung Sohn
        • International "Comfort Women" Day >
          • 30th Anniversary of Kim Hak-Soon Halmoni's public testimony >
            • Kim Hak-Soon Halmoni
        • 2000 Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery
        • 2015 "Comfort Women" Agreement
        • 2017 Special Task Force Report on 2015 "Comfort Women" Agreement between S. Korea and Japan
        • UNESCO and the "Voices of the 'Comfort Women'" >
          • Timeline
          • 2021 Youth Artwork Competition
          • 2021 Young Adult Online Campaign
        • Historic Lawsuits related to Japanese military sexual slavery before and during WWII >
          • Sung Sohn's Essay with commentaries and statement
        • YouTube >
          • First Video Footage of Korean "Comfort Women": July, 2017
          • First Video Footage of Mass Murdered "Comfort Women": Feb. 2018
          • Life as a "Comfort Woman": Story of Kim Bok-Dong
          • Meet Estelita Dy: A Filipino "Comfort Woman" Survivor
          • 2015 "Comfort Women" Agreement and Victims' Reaction
          • 2018 International "Comfort Women" Day
        • Wednesday Demonstration
        • Peace Statue
      • Sexual and medical violence against Black Americans >
        • Lesson Plans >
          • Medical Experimentation on Enslaved Women
          • Nurse Rivers
      • Conflict-related SGBV in Tigray and Afghanistan
      • Reports and Papers on SGBV & Gender Justice
    • History of and Issues Surrounding Asian Diaspora in the United States >
      • ESJF >
        • 19th Century >
          • Lesson Plans
        • 20th Century >
          • Lesson Plans
        • Today >
          • Lesson Plans
      • TACT >
        • K-5
        • 6-8
        • 9-12
      • Facing History and Ourselves
      • Fred T. Korematsu Institute
      • San Francisco Asian Art Museum
      • Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center
    • Medical Atrocities and Use of Banned Weapons >
      • United States >
        • Lesson Plans
      • Asia >
        • Lesson Plans
        • Video Footage for Classroom
        • Primary Source Documents: Medical Atrocities and Ethics
        • Secondary Source Documents: Medical Atrocities and Ethics
      • Europe >
        • Lesson Plans
    • Resistance and Collective Activism >
      • U.S. Slavery
      • Conflict-Related Sexual Violence
  • ESJF Publications
    • "Comfort Women" History and Issues >
      • Teacher Resource Guide >
        • How to Order
      • Student Resource Guide >
        • How to Order
    • Medical Atrocities and Use of Banned Weapons
  • ESJF Professional Development opportunities
  • Get Involved
    • Join Our Email List
    • Donate
    • Contact Us >
      • Workshop and Lecture Request