Adding the "Voices of the 'Comfort Women'" to the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme

In May 2015, the International Committee for Joint Nomination (ICJN) of Documents on the Japanese Military “Comfort Women” submitted an application for the “Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’” to be added to the UNESCO Memory of the World (MOW) Programme. A day or days prior, three right-wing groups in Japan and one group in the U.S. also applied for registration in the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme with six cases that deny the forced nature of the Japanese military sexual slavery system.
 
Organized in 2015, the ICJN is composed of 14 groups from eight countries—Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Indonesia, and East Timor. The “Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’” is a collection of documents that contain the stories of “comfort women.”
 
In October 2017, the application was “postponed” 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. This revision of pursuing “dialogue” in cases where an application is contested legitimizes the perpetrator’s veto power and amounts to demanding that victims negotiate with perpetrators.
 
For more information, consider the timeline below: 

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 eight countries—Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, 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
 
​Voices of the "Comfort Women": ICJN website
Voices of the "Comfort Women": The Power Politics Surrounding the UNESCO Documentary Heritage

2021 Campaigns

2021 International Youth Art Competition & 
​2021 International Young Adult Online Campaign

The Masan, Changwon and Jinhae Civil Assembly for Japanese Military Sexual Slaves (Machangjin in short), an organization that is actively involved in amplifying the voices of “comfort women” in Pusan, South Korea, is hosting two international campaigns this summer to help the “Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’” to be registered to the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. The two events are: 1) an International Youth Art Competition and 2) a youth international campaign to raise awareness about registering the “Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’” to the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. 
​
ESJF is co-organizing these summer campaigns with organizations in Korea, the U.S., Taiwan, and the Philippines. 

2021 International Youth Art Competition:
raising awareness about registering the “Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’” to the UNESCO Memory
​of the World Programme 

ENGLISH

Guidelines 
Application

2021 International Young Adult Online Campaign:
raising awareness about registering the “Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’” to the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme 

ENGLISH

Guidelines
Application

2021년 국제 청소년 작품 공모전 

온라인 캠페인 및 보고대회(포럼)참가자 모집

​<해외용>

일본군‘위안부’기록물 세계기록유산 등재

- 온라인 캠페인 및 보고대회(포럼) 참가자 모집 -

<일본군‘위안부’기록물을 유네스코 세계기록유산으로 등재해야 한다>는 주제를 담은
카드뉴스, 글, 동영상, 사진 등 다양한 캠페인 활동을 SNS, 블로그, 유튜브 등에 올리기
 
Ⅰ. 개요
 
  1. 사업명
     □ 일본군‘위안부’역사의 진실을 위한 국제 청년 온라인 캠페인 및 포럼
           - 일본군‘위안부’기록물 유네스코 세계기록유산 등재 촉구 -
 
  2. 대상
     □ 일본군 ‘위안부’ 기록물 세계기록유산 등재를 촉구하는
        각 국의 청년 (18세~34세) 누구나
 
  3. 참가신청서접수 : 2021년 6월 15일 ~ 7월 말  
 
  4. 주최 / 문의
     □ 주최 및 주관 : 일본군위안부할머니와함께하는마창진시민모임(055-264-0930)
     □ 공동협력단체
        ○ 財團法人台北市婦女救援社會福利事業基金會 (https://www.twrf.org.tw/)
           (Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation)
        ○ Women’s Rights & Peace of Bay Area (www.wrapba.org)
        ○ Education for Social Justice Foundation (http://www.e4sjf.org/contact-us.html)
        ○ Unforgotten Butterflies
        ○ Lila Pilipina (lila.pilipina92@gmail.com)
        ○ 일본군‘위안부’할머니와함께하는청년모임
     □ 후원 : 창원시
 
Ⅱ. 내용 
 
  1. 목적과 의미
     □ 일본군 ‘위안부’ 피해자의 명예를 회복하고 ‘위안부’ 관련한 역사적 진실을 오늘날 전세계가 보호하고 기억해야 할 의무가 있음을 알리고자 함
     □ 세계기록유산으로 등재되기에 충분한 가치가 있는 일본군‘위안부’의 목소리를 각 국의 청년들이 온라인에서 국제 캠페인을 통하여 세계인의 관심을 촉구함
 
  2. 캠페인 주제
     □ 일본군‘위안부’ 기록물이란
       ○ 일본군‘위안부’ 관련 자료는 제도에 관한 공문서 및 사문서, 피해자 증언 등 기록물, ‘위안부’문제 해결을 위한 활동 기록으로 나누어 총 2,744건의 자료를 <일본군‘위안부’의 목소리(Voices of the Comfort Women)>라는 제목으로 2016년 유네스코 세계기록유산으로 등재 신청한 것
     □ 세계기록유산 등재의 의미
       ○ 일본군‘위안부’ 피해 문제를 해결하기 위해, 피해자들과 손잡고 일본에 책임 있는 행동을 할 것을 요구한 세계시민들의 양심
       ○ 2014년 한국, 일본, 중국, 대만, 네덜란드, 필리핀, 인도네시아, 동티모르 8개국, 16개 단위가 모여 <일본군‘위안부’관련 기록물 유네스코 세계기록유산 등재를 위한 국제연대위원회(‘국제연대위’)>를 구성하여 활동
       ○ 이 운동은 20세기의 여성인권침해문제를 피해자 뿐 아니라, 시민사회, 각 국가 그리고 국제사회가 모두 협력한 21세기 인류사회의 가장 중요한 인권회복 운동으로 자부
     □ 일본군‘위안부’역사 관련 참고 사이트
       ○ 국제연대위원회(http://www.voicecw.org),
       ○ 정의기억연대(www.womenandwar.net/),
       ○ Education for Social Justice Foundation(http://www.e4sjf.org/)
       ○ Women’s Rights & Peace of Bay Area (www.wrapba.org)
       ○ 일본군‘위안부’문제연구소 디지털 아카이브(www.archive814.or.kr)
       ○ 일본군‘위안부’문제연구소 웹진 ‘결’(www.kyeol.kr)
 
 
Ⅲ. 참가 방법
 
  1. 참가신청서 제출
     □ 신청서 다운로드 (선택)
        ○ 마창진시민모임 블로그 (https://blog.naver.com/hersstory2020)
        ○ 공동협력단체 사이트
     □ 접수 기간
        ○ 2021년 6월 15일 ~ 7월 말
     □ 접수처 (선택)
        ○ 마창진시민모임 이메일 : 19youth@hanmail.net
        ○ 공동협력단체 (이메일) 접수처 
  2. 화상 오리엔테이션 
     □ 시기 : 2021년 7월 (공동협력단체 일정에 따름)
     □ 대상 : 참가신청서 제출팀 (개인메일 또는 문자 공지)
     □ 내용 : 캠페인 활동 안내와 주제 설명
 
  3. 온라인 캠페인 활동
     □ 활동 기간 : 참가신청서 제출 ~ 보고대회(포럼)
     □ 활동 내용 : 위의 주제를 담은 카드뉴스, 글, 동영상, 사진 등 다양한 캠페인 활동을 SNS, 블로그, 유튜브 등에 올리기 (5회 이상 활동하기)
     □ 활동 인원 : 3~5명이 1팀을 구성하여 활동
     □ 캠페인 활동에 따른 소정의 재료비 지원
 
  4. 캠페인 결과물
     □ 캠페인 활동 결과를 양식에 맞게 정리하여 주최 및 주관단체 또는 각 공동협력단체로 이메일 제출 (양식은 주최 단체와 공동협력단체의 블로그 등 사이트에 있음)
     ※ 상세한 내용은 오리엔테이션(7월 중)에서 설명
 
  5. 보고대회 (포럼)
     □ 시기 : 2021년 10월 25일(예정)
     □ 방법 : 화상회의 (Zoom)
     □ 보고대회에서 발표된 내용은 활동 사례집으로 제작하여 배포함
 
 
Ⅴ. 세부 일정  
  ※ 상황에 따라 변동 있을 수 있음 

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캠페인 참가 신청
6월 15일 ~ 7월 말

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온라인 캠페인 활동 기간
참가신청서 제출 ~ 보고대회

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