 to Global Connections. I'm your host, Carlos Juarez, and thank you for joining us today. We've got a great show. I've welcomed you a friend and someone who's going to share with us some very important insights and perspectives on a topic very relevant. Right now we've got with us my friend Betsy Kawamura. She's founder of Women for Non-Violence and joins us today from New York City. We've got a topic called Women, Peace and Security in Northeast Asia but we'll really be touching on a range of issues. So let me first just welcome you Betsy. Welcome to Global Connections. Great to reconnect. I know it's been some time but I'm really delighted and as I understand you're joining us now from New York City, a global citizen that you are yourself, always moving around. So thank you and welcome Global Connections. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it and it's a joy to come back to your conversation where we left off in 2013 when I was in Hawaii. So that was some time ago. Oh my gosh and you're all you know making it sound as if we're old but maybe it just means we're like you know we're like wine. We get more seasoned and a little bit wiser I hope. And yet of course you know we look at a world and again as our so global connection makes clear I mean we've had opportunities and yourself you've had connections to Hawaii over the years with family at times but also very important you know you're somebody who while you're deeply connected in Europe for quite some time based often in Oslo in Norway or times UK as well you know born in the US but as you may share in a moment with us raised partly in Okinawa if I'm not mistaken right. Yes. But more importantly for us I mean a topic that we want to get to after you know I want you to share maybe just some initial background about yourself with some of our viewers and you know it's a topic that right now I'm curious to see some of the challenges some of the opportunities that you've seen as you've been working on these issues for many years particularly dealing with sexual gender based violence a topic that on one hand it's been around a long time obviously and particularly when we look at Asia, North Asia, the legacy in the history of World War II and the comfort women and the like but of course more contemporary issues that persist and continue and today a lot of your work is taking you more recently look at North Korean refugees right and some of the very serious challenges there so let me stop I want to maybe let you get started with us but I look forward to a dialogue and gaining insights so our viewers can well understand better these very violations so tell me Betsy a little bit about again where things are now what's on your face these days what are you working on now. Yes thank you Carlos just to recap a little bit back in our conversation 2013 I'm Betsy Colomer of course and I'm the founder and the director of Women for Non-Violence which is like a rather small NGO that I had founded in Oslo, Norway back in around 2000 oh god 2000 more than more than about 10 years ago and the the premises of that was that I am a survivor of sexual gender-based violence out of Okinawa which is a tiny island south of Japan and as a survivor advocate I wanted to try to empower other North Asian survivors of gender-based violence and Hawaii of course is in the Pacific Isle and of course Hawaii has like a lot of ties with mainland Japan as well as Okinawa and I think there's a lot of Uchi Nanchu people in Hawaii as I understand so during that time I really want to create awareness of the activities I was doing in in Hawaii but the thing is that you know a lot of good things have happened actually since the time that UN has spoken you know amazingly the Black Lives Matter for instance um Asian hate awareness as well as the Me Too and the times of women have come up almost simultaneously in the last two to three years and I consider this to be a really opportune time to basically guard our attention to the topics that we're talking about a world peace and security for Northeast Asia and I think the reason is that you know we've come to we've come you know quite far since 2013 which is about eight years ago where social media plays an incredibly active role in in amplifying the voices of women um Asian women you know Black women minority women and I think this is an opportune time to discuss the situation of you know sexual gender-based violence but also as like empowering ourselves as to what we can do instead of saying that we are victims or even you know I would I would say it's okay to be survivors but I would refrain from using the word victims because it disempowers us and I think you know what is really important is that you know instead of isolating ourselves as like survivors or basically those who have been marginalized we need to basically you know synergize and blend ourselves with with the community to basically create solidarity and what could be done to prevent the situation now you know what what is still unfortunate is that you know I spoke into a few Okinawan activists here in New York you know believe it or not there are like a group of women of mainland Japan and Okinawan women here in New York City who work on empowerment issues and I think that this is very interesting for Okinawa and as you know you know there's there's still like a lot of heavily politicized discussion on Henneco and the situation of the US military bases in the United States now what what I wanted to really relate to the general public to your program today is that the more the USA seems to present in North Korea and China as a potential threat or aggressor the more pressure there is going to be on creating US military bases in Okinawa and what a lot of people do not realize that there is a direct connection between amplifying the so-called threats of North Korea and China and the maximization of potential six-field gender-based violence to women of Okinawa and Japan in general and the reason is that is that the status of force agreement which is an agreement between the United States military and the countries around the world who are hosting the US military have unfortunately create a situation where there are loopholes where the US military armed forces personnel often get away with crimes against the hosting country population especially in terms of Okinawa even mainland Japan of women who have been assaulted by US military members who have not been prosecuted and my my colleague Catherine Jane Fisher in mainland Japan she is also like a survivor of gender-based violence by the US military between herself myself and very others various other scholars you know they have compiled a list of survivors since 1945 and the list is quite astounding and the thing is that you know I find it to be quite painful that the women of Okinawa and Japan are not fluent in English as as far as Kathy and I are concerned you know as fluent as us and have the international reach because you know I firmly believe that if the survivors in Okinawa and mainland Japan as well as the activists had access to multilingual you know capacities and the availability of resources to go to the UN in New York to visit the human rights offices in in Switzerland and other international NGOs it would create an incredibly amplified voice to to really create like a much more urgent need to reanalyze and and redevelop the status of force agreements between the United States military and countries like Japan and Okinawa and you know I certainly believe that this is of major importance because the SOFA agreement covers basically 700 to 800 US military bases all over the world in about 74 to 75 countries all over the world so this is not an isolated case of the SOFA agreement creating loopholes only for Okinawa and Japan. We are moving into basically the 20th or 25th year of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 of World Peace and Security and it is pretty audacious to think that despite the fact that the United States has created the executive order for the National Action Plan for 1325 that was put in action by President Obama there has been no pointed action by the UN nor any other international agency to to to you know to I guess catalyze the United States to rethink of their National Action Plan in terms of the status of voice agreements they have with countries around the world that enable sexual gender-based violence to happen without much thought of adjudication or prosecution. You know some of the larger international NGOs back in 2019 just two to three years ago and myself thought that it'd be really nice to have like a like a very high level roundtable discussion on that to potentially include and invite the chief prosecutor the ICC for instance and the former Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Margaret Waldstrom to such a roundtable discussion to create international awareness of these issues but unfortunately COVID came and as I was explained to you a few minutes ago our initial meeting our initial ideas and ambitions got capitulated however I think with social media and other film and media mediums we can create some kind of virtual roundtable discussion where people at the high level can't come around to discuss these issues and you know I appreciate the fact that you discussed North Korea issues as well which I did bring up back in 2013 because North Korean refugee women are another group of women who have gone through really bad sexual gender-based violence especially when they're trafficked from North Korea into mainland China. The reason they are trafficked from North Korea to mainland China is because they wish to escape North Korea and it's extremely harsh regime and many of the women unfortunately go through forced marriages with Chinese farmers as like perhaps the only means of finding any kind of economic survival strategy when they are in China and on top of that many of them become hung into the sex industry and I even heard a pretty sad stories about North Korean refugee women who managed to finally find refugee in South Korea they also do unfortunately find themselves in the sex traffic trade I mean not sex traffic but the sex industry as well. So we do have this we do have a really significant group of women and perhaps men also who are victims or survivors of sexual gender-based violence in Northeast Asia but as I said before because of the lack of international awareness in general about this region and because of the extreme hardship of the language barriers that you know you cannot expect these women survivors to be fluent in English as Catherine and I are and you know you cannot expect them to have the reach level abilities that that we do in the UN and with people like yourself or the academy here that we are finding a minimization of their voices as opposed to being amplified so I wish to take this opportunity and I thank you again you know Carlos for letting me explain the situation to you that I think it's about time that we create like a very strong international solidarity of creating awareness of these issues so that the voices of far East Asian women who have gone through sexual gender-based violence whether it's through trafficking of you know from North Korea to China or whether it is through the US military sexual violence that does happen in Okinawa and mainland Japan that avoids prosecution so you know I mean and one of the stronger reasons I keep on mentioning this to you as before is that in my experience of being located in Norway in Oslo Norway it's it's absolutely a fabulous place in terms of training for human rights and gender-based equality issues the Norwegian civil society is very strong on UN UN Security Council resolution 1325 on one piece of security and they really try to catalyze other countries around the globe to really look at a national action plan however when it comes to looking at 1325 for far East Asia namely Okinawa Japan South Korea North Korea and China I mean there is virtual incredibly minimal amount of information on this and part of the reason is that the Norwegian national action plan does not really prioritize far East Asia and I think this is because of the unfortunate assumption that gender-based violence is not such an important field to look at in the United States nor in far East Asia and I think there's also like another real politic issue is that even if Norway as a country understood that the United States has its you know aggressions and egregious acts of sexual gender-based violence in some of the Northeast Asian countries there is not much political will for Norway to approach the USA on this because of their common interest in NATO understanding that Norway has like a common border with Russia so you see you know the the constant with gender-based violence I mean you know if you if you talk to the popular person on the the street of course most people would say yes it's really important to stop violence against women however if you really really take this from a politicized level stopping violence against women can be a politically very sensitive subject when countries like the United States are asked to approach Japan Okinawa and other countries and to really re-evaluate their status-force agreements and for me for example to ask the country of Norway as well as other countries to reprimand the United States are not re-evaluating their status-of-force agreements so what I'm trying to tell you is that you know like a very simple principle of trying to minimize violence against or sexual violence against women children can have enormous political real politic implications that make it virtually unrealistic for a individual person like me to expect changes but this is part of the reason I'm here in New York is that because you know I do hope to create more awareness of this to my UN colleagues and I plan to go into Washington DC to create more awareness of to the think tanks I do know yes let me say that and I really appreciate what what you've shared is I think a very good panorama of the really on one hand the challenges that you see from many different you know actors different players and then big puzzle but also what can seem at times of frustration because at an individual level we want actually want to do things and we try and yet consistently we're up against the frustrations whether it's our own government or whether it's organizations with the United Nations itself which has lofty goals and ideals but also easily criticized because that security council at the end of the day is all about power politics and if it's something against the interests of the U.S. or the challenges it or the Russians or the Chinese nothing gets done in the end now that's not to say we throw our arms away and say nothing needs to be done at the end of the day all of us do have you know the communities that we're connected to and curiously you know what I like to is you know you mentioned we connected to what is now eight almost five years ago and a lot of the same issues continue there the challenges what what continues to be I think also interesting and you describe part of it is the role of social media on one hand and you can see parts of it as as opportunities helping and as you were describing for example the difficulty of let's say language barriers for many victims who simply don't have either access to the information can't share their story etc again I'm just thinking out loud quickly but there are you know probably opportunities where social media could maybe help connect people who have that language proficiency to translate in a way that maybe in the past it would have required them to go and the connected person again just just thinking out loud there but let me get more to the point what I think and as you know as a professor myself I can you doing some ongoing teaching but thinking more from the conceptual academic point of view you yourself have been an activist very much directly involved in NGO work working within this framework of the international system the international organization like the UN and its many umbrella pieces the many foreign governments and I know that you've mentioned Norway and Norway is always a very curious very important piece in this area of peace studies it has a tremendous concentration of expertise and then and and institutions and capacity and yet it has limitations too it's a small country and you described at the end of the day what what we can only say is real poly peak if it's that power politics of the US and nor which have a very important alliance that they're a part of and which the US is the bigger you know dominant you know super power but I wonder if maybe just from your own perspective of many years working on these issues would you how how might you describe the way in which social media because it's a topic that continues to have double-edged sword it can help it can it connects us as virtual communities allows us today to speak from you know different parts of the world and share that but at the same time we also see there are other darker elements whether it's the way in which you know more sinister interests can use both for media or authoritarian leaders you know in so many places and deeply polarized environments and then it gets harder to put something so important like this human rights rather rather something that requires us to know history to know law to know you know substance and too much of the world is like driven by just little simple answers you have to know an emotion and and this gets brushed aside but at the end of the day we need we need to know the story we need to know the history we need to educate people about it and those who are choosing not to hopefully we can marginalize them but today sadly social media is giving them a platform in some ways to to subtly push out and it reminds me a little bit of the way you were describing sometimes you have these issues that we all agree are so important and we can all agree we need to do something about it why can't we and and there's no simple answer but there are many reasons a lot of them are the different interests that the actors have like the states you know whether the US government or reaching government or the limitations of institutions that you work with so I wonder if you can maybe to put it as a real quick question it would just be how do you see the social media either as opportunities and and and ways in which maybe it has helped transform even the activism that you do because you know today we see more of it it was not as much 10 years ago and certainly not as much 20 or 30 years ago well you know one of the very positive things that that happened is that since Biden came into the presidency not too long ago you know I'm very thrilled to hear about the new White House Council on Gender Policies and I think that this is really welcoming as I understand the former members of the Times up are heading the White House Council on Gender Policies which is fabulous and as I understand I've read their social media and their website quite often and they talk they speak a lot about social responsibilities and accountability and I suppose what they mean by accountability is to bring those who are accountable for gender-based violence or you know or violations against gender equality to to the forefront and I think that these issues are very important they do speak about international policies that they're concerned with I haven't seen too many other social media that do cover international policies but certainly on the domestic front I do see a lot of the social media coming from Jennifer Klein Times up the the new White House Council on Gender Policies to discuss this you know my plan my strategic plan is with some of my colleagues who are also survivors I thought that it would be really nice to approach the new White House to approach President Biden and his colleagues and the office cabinets involved in the new council about a few things about you know as I spoke to you it's about the status of voice agreements that that govern the relationship the legal relationship between the United States and the military forces around the world nearly 800 and another issue that I would like to bring into the light is the the apparently it's a terrible name it's called the Recreation and Amusement Association the RAA you know just very quick of the Recreation and Amusement Association was created in 1945 around September this was when Japan capitulated to the United States the United States basically came into Okinawa in Japan and basically it was under President Eisenhower Truman and General MacArthur you know the United States the Allied Forces were there as a kind of way to repair and to build up the the country of Japan unfortunately the Recreation and Amusement Association which was formed by the Japanese government with the total understanding of the U.S. military was to provide Japanese women as sexual slavery for the military the U.S. military and I heard some gruesome accounts of some of the women having to have about 45 clients and they were paid two dollars a day who wants to have 45 clients and be paid two dollars a day and many of the women of Japan they were kind of clandestinely recruited into this program to sexually serve the U.S. military as a way to kind of serve their country and I find this to be extremely disappointing and talk about you know erasing any trace of dignity for women and what I find equally heinous is that you know despite the USA being proud enough to present themselves as the the freedom givers to you know in world war two in terms of the Nazis I mean why would they in Japan basically say yes to being sexually served by a group of extremely impoverished and desperate women who have got have nothing and they had were capitulated you know for the U.S. government I mean this r.a.a lasted for at least six months the only reason that the U.S. government decided to shut it down is because of rampant spread of sexual transmitted diseases but even after officially the r.a.a was shut down there was the phenomenon of the so-called pom-pom women Japanese women who were so-called civilian freelance prostitutes who basically sexually served the U.S. military who continued to because it was lucrative there was there was extremely other means other any other means of financially surviving during that time and it was a very sad situation where many of the women apparently they were looking upon the pom-pom women with some form of jealousy because these women were able to afford western clothes were available you know we're able to afford purses handbags modern clothing nice hairstyles and chocolate and food and this shows you the desperate situation and I basically find it unconscionable to think that a U.S. military service person would stoop that low to say yes to the with the sexual slavery of these women and unfortunately many of these women are dying out they're in their 80s and 90s and my originally plan was to go into Japan to to trace them down with the help of some academia but obviously COVID has completely nullified that effort so I'm also reaching out to academics in mainland USA several of whom I know as well as some in Europe I'm hoping to identify and in Japan and Okinawa to basically amplify or preserve the stories of these women original women who served the U.S. military under the RAA I just wanted to note the huge difference the huge difference between the comfort women in southern Korea and these RAA is that the South Korean comfort women have received enormous support from the South Korean government and the American government but the women of the RAA I really doubt that they're going to have any kind of support from Japan or the USA so it's up to survivor activists like myself especially of Japanese or Asian background to amplify their voices or preserve their stories while you know we still can so I just wanted to mention that also no well that's a very commendable point and it's so important particularly what you're speaking of is the need for an oral history that that can capture the stories before these now you know aging and you know soon to be all gone it's a serious challenge and then the disparities that you describe you know the legacy for the South Koreans and what role their government and society chose in terms of perhaps dealing with it it underscores how gosh a lot of times we need to understand different cultures and you know again I'm just speaking here because especially with Japan I'm certainly not the expert on it but I know it is so important to look at either different aspects of the culture perhaps more pronounced more prominent than in other societies in a way and whether it has to do with you know keeping silent about this not wanting to show faith you know lose faith and so on there's some you know that's relative you know you could say almost like a stain on the image where I don't know I'm just speaking out loud but as an educator myself I can imagine that the history in Japan that is taught is not including a lot of information about the comfort women or what the governments did I mean just as you could see so many examples in US history doesn't say a whole lot about you know the marginalized communities or the plight of you know endless you know different minority interests well Betsy we've come to the end of our conversation here but I really I want to thank you for sharing this and really it underscores again there's a role for all of us and you as an individual yourself a survivor of gender-based violence have been able to harness that in ways that you connect with the other players the institutions the experts whether you know through your base in Oslo or connections in New York and Washington D.C. now to further you know I guess give a voice to this and I think I'm grateful for this opportunity as well I you know share this with with an audience that brings connections and young leaders from all over the world particularly Asia but otherwise you know students who are learning about it this is one of those things that we can't you know let just be kind of swept under the rug it has to be brought out and discussed it as difficult and uncomfortable but I'll have to close it on that I really do appreciate this opportunity to hear your you've shared these insights and we'll continue the conversation perhaps another chance when we can thank you for joining me here on Global Connections part of our Think Tech Hawaii series and Betsy I'm grateful to reconnect and maybe next chance I can get to Europe I'll find a way to connect with you there okay oh yes thank you excellent take care and I love you bye bye