Nikkei Resisters Endorse Comfort Women Justice Coalition

SAN FRANCISCO — On Feb. 10, Nikkei Resisters voted unanimously to endorse the Comfort Women Justice Coalition (CWJC) and the March 10 International Women’s Day event in St. Mary’s Square.

The CWJC is a local organization that is part of the international movement to achieve justice for the surviving “comfort women,” and to work for the elimination of such war crimes and human trafficking.

In the 1930s and 1940s the Japanese military forced hundreds of thousands of girls and young women from Korea, the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Japan and other countries to serve as sexual slaves for Japanese soldiers. These were the so-called “comfort women.”

Last year, San Francisco became the first major city in the U.S. to build a memorial to the comfort women, an effort in which the CWJC was instrumental.

Nikkei Resisters was formed last year by Japanese Americans in the San Francisco-Oakland area who felt the need to resist injustices such as the Muslim travel ban and the indiscriminate arrests and deportations of undocumented individuals.

The mission statement of Nikkei Resisters states in part, “We . . . are opposed to all forms of social injustice and discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”

The Women’s Day event will take place at 2 p.m. at St. Mary’s Square on California Street in San Francisco, the site of the comfort women memorial.

For more information, email nikkeiresisters@gmail.com or visit www.facebook.com/nikkeiresisters.