V-DAY の来年のフォーカスは「慰安婦」

演劇としてはどうしようもない駄作なんだけれども性暴力やDVに取り組む団体のために資金をたくさん集めていることだけは評価できる「ヴァギナ・モノローグ」、その作者 Eve Ensler さんが作った「女性への暴力」に取り組む団体 V-DAY から、こんなメールが。

2006 Spotlight: Justice to 'Comfort Women'

Each year V-Day draws attention to a particular group of women who are experiencing violence, with the goal of raising awareness and funds to put a worldwide media spotlight on this area and to raise funds to aid groups who are addressing it. On the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War II, V-Day joins women and men around the world in calling for justice to 'Comfort Women' survivors. The euphemism 'comfort women' was coined by imperial Japan to refer to young females of various ethnic and national backgrounds who were forced to offer sexual services to the Japanese troops during the Asia/Pacific Wars
between 1932 and 1945. Some were minors; others were deceptively recruited by middlemen; still more were detained and forcibly abducted. Estimates of the number of 'comfort women' range between 50,000 to 200,000.

In the early 1990s, Korean victims of Japan's military sexual slavery broke their silence and came forward nearly a half century after WWII, followed by other survivors in China, Taiwan, North Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Timor L'Este. Now the aging survivors are dying off one by one without redress from the Japanese government, which still denies legal responsibility.

The V-Day 2006 Spotlight joins the 'comfort women' survivors and women's groups from East and Southeast Asia in calling for justice and reparations for the unanswered war crimes. V-Day is working with groups on the ground in Asia to plan a major V-Day event in Seoul during Summer 2006 to bring maximum attention to this issue. V-Day is also working to raise awareness of human trafficking as we recognize the relationship between the story of the 'comfort women' and the system of modern day human
trafficking.

この団体は、毎年「この問題にフォーカス」として「アフガン女性」だとか「アメリカ先住民女性」だとか選んでプログラムを組んでいるのだけれど、白人女性の立場から「野蛮な文化や非白人の男性に虐げられたかわいそうな女性を支援する」という感覚があって、毎年やり方がマズすぎる。それが来年は「慰安婦」をテーマに取り上げるということで、歴史修正主義勢力が簡単に叩ける対象を提供してしまいそうな予感。上の文章も、保守派にツッコミいれられそうな箇所がいくつかあるし。
　もちろん、日本の国内問題は日本にいる人がなんとかすべきで、日本の保守派を勢いづかせるからといって国際的な取り組みを抑制してくれとは言えない。でも、国際的と言っても V-DAY の人たちはあんまり頭良くないからなー。来年の夏に韓国で盛大なイベントをやるそうだけれど、どうか韓国人の女性に全て任せてアメリカ人は余計な口を出さないで欲しいな。