Statue of Peace - Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea - Civil Rights Memorials on Waymarking.com

This Statue of Peace is in the open square which in English would be called Pungnammun Gate Plaza. The statue is not concerned with women’s right to vote (suffrage) but is a statement concerning the loss of Korean women’s rights during the Pacific War. The statue is a tribute to Korean women who were victims of sexual slavery during the later Japanese occupation (approximately 1937 to 1945). Even today, the pain of comfort women is not recognized by society at large.

Since 1991, more than 230 women revealed the truth concerning forcible abduction by the military. The women were still teenaged girls when cut off from their families. Returning to their homeland at the end of the Pacific War, they were treated poorly by government and society.

The statues themselves cause emotional reactions, negative and positive, in Asia and in America. In this plaza, I felt uncomfortable, perhaps because I spent too much time at this controversial statue.

As for the sculpture, though the form is of a girl, one can feel the grandmother she becomes. The butterflies in the shadow represent hope, hope that an apology might come, even if after she turns gray. The bird on the shoulder represents the dead for whom she must continue the fight. The vacant chair represents those who have passed on. Perhaps someone can sit in that empty chair and empathize and hope.

Civil Right Type: Gender Equality (includes women's suffrage)

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