The Transnational Campaign for Redress for Wartime Rape by the Japanese Military: Cases for Survivors in Shanxi Province

Abstract

This article discusses cases of sexual violence committed by the Japanese Army in China during the Asia-Pacific War and the redress movement for Chinese rape survivors started in the 1990s. I focus particularly on campaigns launched by women in rural Shanxi province in the People's Republic of China. Unlike survivors of wartime rape and sexual slavery by the Japanese Army in other Asian and European nations, Shanxi women had to develop their movement without strong government and grassroots support in their home country. The ambivalent attitude of the Chinese government regarding individual Chinese citizens' demand for redress from the Japanese government and corporations responsible for the wartime atrocities led women in Shanxi and their supporters in the People's Republic of China and Japan to form a remarkable transnational alliance.