Park Yu-ha

Academic career Park graduated from Keio University in 1981. She earned an M.A. from Waseda University in 1989 and a Ph.D. in 1993.

Comfort Women of the Empire

Synopsis In her book Comfort Women of the Empire, Park challenged an established description of imperial Japan's military comfort station system. She describes a more complex relationship between the comfort women and soldiers.

Park says requesting Japan take legal responsibility is not effective, considering the colonial status of Korea and the existence of the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea, and criticizes Jong-Dae-Hyup, (정대협, the main comfort women supporting NGO in South Korea) which has focused on the legal responsibility of Japan. Furthermore, excluding other comfort women's stories which do not fit into the pre-existing image of "pure innocent teen girls who were arrested by Japanese soldiers and coerced to be sex-slaves" is actually suppressing the real victims and makes the victim groups separated.

Therefore, considering the historical situation, the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea in 1965, and the apology and compensation of Japan in the 1990s, Park claims that requesting responsibility for Japan's colonial domination is required, rather than trying to urge Japan to accept legal liability for the War.

Controversy Park's book Comfort Women of the Empire contains a significantly different narrative about comfort women compared to the previously accepted narratives, as it describes in depth the imperialistic exploits by Japan, the patriarchal system in Korea and also the capitalistic exploits of the "dealers". This explanation brought fierce anger from the comfort women supporters since her explanation was analyzed as "virtually an exoneration to Japan" by the critics. Chong Yung-hwan, Professor at the Meiji Gakuin University criticized Comfort Women of the Empire for misinterpreting and distorting basic sources and previous research and advocating colonialism. Nine former comfort women in Nanume-Jip (나눔의 집), seeking to ban sales of the book, filed suit in both civil and criminal court, claiming that the scholar had defamed them. She was asked to pay 10 million won, or $8,262, to each of nine women. She was also accused by a Korean prosecutor.

On 25 November 2015, against the indictment of Park, 54 Japanese scholars and intellectuals including Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎, Nobel Laureate), Tomiichi Murayama (村山 富市, former Prime minister of Japan), Yōhei Kōno (河野 洋平, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan) and Chizuko Ueno (上野 千鶴子, professor, Tokyo University) addressed statements supporting Park Yu-ha, and asking for the Korean government's withdrawal of the accusation and criticizing South Korean prosecutors for “suppressing the freedom of scholarship and press.” 190 Korean intellectuals also followed the statements. On January 17, 2017, Professor Noam Chomsky at MIT and Professor Bruce Cumings at University of Chicago joined in the previous statements addressed by Japanese scholars previously, with requesting immediate withdrawal of presecusion or sentence 'Not guilty', with supporting Park Yu-ha.

On January 25, 2017, the 11th criminal division of Seoul Dongbu District Court acquitted Park on the defamation charges. The court said "no circumstances were confirmed to indicate that standard research ethics were violated or that the dignity of victims was belittled, such as infringing on their right to self-determination and freedom of privacy and confidentiality."

Works Comfort Women of the Japanese Empire: Colonial Rule and Battle over Memory”Park, Yuha. Routledge. 2024 English edition

An English summary by author. March 28, 2015 [Book Review] [Book Review]

Chapter of Comfort Women (in Korean) [Book Review]