[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 26 (Monday, February 12, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E321]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E321]]
                         TRIBUTE TO KOON-JA KIM

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL M. HONDA

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 12, 2007

  Mr. HONDA. Madam Speaker, I rise today in tribute to 81-year-old 
Koon-Ja Kim, a survivor of the Japanese Imperial Army's ``comfort 
women'' system of the World War II era.
  Koon-Ja Kim was born in Pyung-Chang, in Korea's Kangwon Province. She 
was orphaned at the age of 14 and, to support herself and her siblings, 
she worked as a maid. At the age of 17, she was forcibly drafted by the 
Japanese Government to serve as a sex slave, or what is now 
euphemistically termed a ``comfort woman,'' in China. After 3 years of 
being physically abused and raped on a daily basis, the war ended. With 
no money and physically defeated bodies, she and a small group of other 
women summoned their strength of spirit to walk hundreds of miles over 
several weeks back into Korea.
  Since 1998 she has been living with nine former comfort women at the 
House of Sharing. All she wants in her remaining life is to receive an 
official apology and fair compensation from the Japanese Government. 
She plans to donate the money to the public if she receives the 
compensation. Until now, Kim had collected compensation she had 
received from the Korean Government--$43,000--and her life savings, and 
donated $100,000 to the Beautiful Foundation, which provides financial 
aid for orphans to continue their studies, $10,000 to the House of 
Sharing, and $5,000 to a Catholic organization.
  At the Beautiful Foundation, the ``Kim Koon-Ja Fund'' was established 
in 2000, where the proceeds go to college students who grew up at 
orphanages so that they can continue with their education. Kim 
dedicates her life to helping disadvantaged children to attain 
education because she herself grew up as an orphan, and the only 
education she had received was 8 months at a night school.
  The House of Sharing Establishment Committee was founded in June 1992 
and is supported by Buddhist organizations and other donors. Koon-Ja 
Kim, along with other women at the House of Sharing and around the 
world, has engaged in a daily battle since 1992 to educate the public 
about the Japanese military's brutal abuse of women, and to put 
pressure on the Japanese Government to apologize for their past 
atrocities. Koon-Ja Kim meets with community organizations, students, 
and activists from South Korea, the United States, and other countries 
around the world to inspire others to know and advocate for the comfort 
women's cause.
  Madam Speaker, on February 15, the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, 
and the Global Environment of the Committee on Foreign Affairs will 
convene a hearing entitled ``Protecting the Human Rights of Comfort 
Women.'' Koon-Ja Kim has been invited to share her story with members 
of the subcommittee along with other surviving comfort women who want 
to see justice prevail.
  On January 31, I introduced H. Res. 121, which expresses ``the sense 
of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan should 
formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility 
in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Force's 
coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as 
`comfort women,' during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and 
the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War 
II.''
  Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in tribute to Koon-Ja 
Kim and the thousands of surviving comfort women.

                          ____________________