LOS ANGELES—Exhibit: “Comfort Women” Then and Now

Caption: Soon-duk Kim, Taken Away, 1995, courtesy of Comfort Women: Then and Now–Who They Were and Why We Should Remember Them.

LOS ANGELES—In collaboration with Comfort Women Action for Redress and Education (CARE), a California-based organization led by survivors of World War II-era institutionalized sex slavery and human trafficking, a new interpretive exhibit opening in February 2024 will bring to light the experiences of these abused women and girls and their struggle for justice. Using historical photographs, documents, maps, and storytelling, the exhibition will foster public understanding of how an event that happened more than 70 years ago is still relevant in the context of present-day human trafficking and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV), and how these women transformed from victims to activists.

Tens of thousands of women and girls were forced into sexual slavery by the imperial Japanese army between 1932 and 1945. Forced to work in “comfort stations” for twelve hours a day, the women lived under deplorable conditions, moving about as they followed the army, then abandoned when the war ended. CARE (Comfort Women Action for Redress & Education) continues to tell the story of these women, pushing for acknowledgment of these human rights abuses from the Japanese government.

Comfort Women: Then and Now—Who They Were and Why We Should Remember Them

Exhibit Run: February 29–July 14, 2024