Following KML’s post about the new museum on sexual slavery that is reported to open on August 1, found some links that I thought might deserve a separate post.
“The Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace,” as it was reported by Japan Times, is the translation of アクティブ・ミュージアム「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」. The site, which is only in Japanese, can be found here.
For those who are in Tokyo, a museum opening event will be held on July 31.
There is some information in English about this museum, by way of a notice on the passing of Yayori Matsui, a journalist, activist, and a key person behind the museum.
The museum site is part of Violence against Women in War – Network Japan (The Japanese page is here.)
VAWW-NET Japan is an organization dedicated to ending violence against women during war and is currently positioning the museum as a node to connect to other such centers of information and activism in other Asian countries.
Here’s another piece of news that I’m sure some readers here will already know about. In 2000 they organized the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, known as Women’s Tribunal 2000 (in English, Japanese). But earlier this year Asahi Shinbun reported that some government officials clandestinely interfered with the tribunal and attempted to discredit VAWW-NET Japan. This report was based on a disclosure from a producer at NHK.
For more on this, see VAWW-NET Japan’s blog. This post in English (here) has a good summary of the history of this scandal.
