2021: Her Struggle as a "Comfort Woman"

Quelle:  https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/philippine-survivor-recounts-her-struggle-comfort-woman-japan

"March 8 is International Women’s Day, a day that helps nations celebrate the elimination of discrimination against women.
Listen to Cheryl Diaz Meyer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, as she shares intimate details of and the inspiration
for her recent project with NPR that shines a light on the last living “Comfort Women” of the Philippines.
The “Comfort Women” story was supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Yunghi Kim Grant. To learn more about Diaz Meyer, her work, and future exhibits, visit her website. View her photos and read the NPR article on the last living “Comfort Women” of the Philippines.


Philippine Survivor Recounts Her Struggle as a 'Comfort Woman' in Japan

It's been 75 years since the end of World War II. And in the Philippines, victims are still haunted by an atrocity - the sexual
enslavement of women by Japanese forces occupying the country. Some 40 of those women are still alive. NPR's Julie
McCarthy has our report on one of those survivors. And a warning - we do have to describe violence and sexual assault to
tell this story.

JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE: Narcisa Claveria invites us into the family apartment outside Manila, where we arrange
ourselves in a small bedroom to escape the noise.
Could you move a little bit closer to me? And are you sure you wouldn't be more comfortable on the bed?

NARCISA CLAVERIA: (Speaking Tagalog).

MCCARTHY: NPR has been in settings like this, interviewing some two dozen Philippine women in their 80s and 90s who
share a common wartime experience. With little prompting, Claveria pours out her story at the hands of Japanese troops
who occupied the Philippines in World War II.
What happened to your village? What did they do?

CLAVERIA: (Speaking Tagalog).

MCCARTHY: Claveria says her family was resting at home from work in the fields on the main island, Luzon, when Japanese
troops swarmed their village, moving house to house. It was 1943, with just under two years left in the war. The Japanese
were hunting for Philippine guerrillas. Finding one house empty, they rounded on Claveria's father, the village leader.

CLAVERIA: (Speaking Tagalog).

MCCARTHY: "How many children do you have? Eight, he said." But, Claveria recalled, "Only seven of us lined up. My father'd
forgotten one daughter was in Manila." The Japanese said he was lying and lashed him to a pillar of the house. There,
Claveria said, soldiers began to skin her father alive. .....

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