The wait is endless. Especially for women over 95 years old, especially for survivors of the Second World War. They live spread across South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, and even China. Only about fifty people remain, the last known surviving victims of the Japanese war machine during the Fifteen Years’ War (1931-1945).
Sex slaves forcibly registered in the brothels of the Japanese imperial army, these “comfort women” have waited for eight years for UNESCO to grant them recognition for their existence – if not their suffering – as having symbolic power. There are no reparations, no money, no punishment, but only archival footage and simple testimonies documenting their suffering and the actions of the civil society that has accompanied them for decades to defend their rights. To remember and leave a trace that is not anecdotal.
This is largely the meaning of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Memory of the World program: to establish a “a global and important documentary heritage (which) must be protected and permanently accessible to everyone without hindrance”, shows Unesco contacted by Release. Before adding that this conservation is purposeful «on p
