Jan Ruff O'Herne

Jeanne Alida "Jan" Ruff-O'Herne (18 January 1923 – 19 August 2019) was a Dutch Australian of Irish ancestry and human rights activist known for campaigning internationally against war rape. During World War II, Ruff-O'Herne was forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. After remaining silent for fifty years, Ruff-O'Herne spoke out publicly from the 1990s until her death to demand a formal apology from the Japanese government and to highlight the plight of other "comfort women". On her death, the South Australian Attorney-General noted: "her story of survival is a tribute to her strength and courage, and she will be sorely missed not only here in South Australia, but around the world."

Biography Ruff-O'Herne was born in 1923 in Bandung in the Dutch East Indies, then a colony of the Dutch Empire. She grew up as a devout Catholic. During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, Ruff-O'Herne and thousands of Dutch women were forced into hard physical labor at a prisoner-of-war camp at a disused army barracks in Ambarawa, Indonesia. In February 1944, high-ranking Japanese officials arrived at the camp and ordered all single girls seventeen years and older to line up. Ten girls were chosen; Ruff-O'Herne, twenty-one years old at the time, was one of them. Ruff-O'Herne and six other young women were taken by Japanese officers to an old Dutch colonial house at Semarang. The girls thought they would be forced into factory work or used for propaganda. They soon realized that the colonial house was to be converted to a military brothel.

On their first day, photographs of the women were taken and displayed at the reception area. In 2002 she was made an Officer in the Order of Australia for being an "advocate for human rights and the protection of women in war, and for leadership in encouraging articulation of war-related atrocities." Ruff-O'Herne died in Adelaide on 20 August 2019, aged 96. The character Ellen Jansen in Comfort Women: A New Musical is based on Ruff-O'Herne.

Human rights activism In the decades after the war, Ruff-O'Herne did not speak publicly about her experience until 1992, when three Korean comfort women demanded an apology and compensation from the Japanese government. Inspired by the actions of these women and wanting to offer her own support, Ruff-O'Herne decided to speak out as well. At the invitation of the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts, Ruff-O'Herne broke her silence and shared her story at the International Public Hearing on Japanese War Crimes in Tokyo in December 1992.

In 1998 the Asian Women's Fund project for Dutch victims was formally established. Although 79 Dutch women accepted Japan's apology and atonement money, Ruff-O'Herne considered the fund an insult and refused the compensation offered, wanting Japan to come to terms with its history and offer a sincere apology. From 1992 Ruff-O'Herne continued to work for the "plight of the Comfort Women and for the protection of women in war."

United States congressional hearing On 15 February 2007 Ruff-O'Herne appeared before the United States House of Representatives as part of a congressional hearing on "Protecting the Human Rights of Comfort Women":