On July 10, the Comfort Women Justice Coalition (CWJC), a non-profit women’s rights organization that campaigns for the Japanese government to take responsibility for the sex slave trade of over 200,000 Asian women during World War 2, awarded an appreciation plaque to several UC Berkeley Korean students at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum.
CWJC stated that the students played a crucial role in bringing awareness to the comfort women issue during the past year, supporting former comfort woman and human rights activist Grandma Yong Soo Lee as she held a meeting in March. Korean students also raised funds to host a screening of Director Cho Jung-Rae’s “Spirits’ Homecoming,” a period drama depicting the conditions of the brothels that the comfort women were forced to inhabit. The production of “Spirits’ Homecoming” faced financial hardships, leading to a 14 year long production only to top South Korea’s box office upon its release in 2015.
Korean student organizations in 9 colleges, including UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, Penn State and the University of Iowa, collaborated to donate funds for the movie screening, contributing a total of $2,000 to the screening.
Originally by Hyeonah Jeon intern reporter
Original article manuscript may be found here
Translated/Adapted by Hankyul Sharon Lee
