Ten Thousand Things

"Ten Thousand Things" is a Buddhist expression representing the dynamic interconnection and simultaneous unity and diversity of everything in the universe.

2006 V-Day Spotlighting Justice for "Comfort Women" Survivors Across Asia – "The Vagina Monologues" Opens in Seoul on Sept. 15

This is just a beginning of a series reporting on performances of "The Vagina Monologues" across Asia in 2006, putting a spotlight on the decades of waiting for justice endured by the survivors of wartime Japan's sexual slavery system and the related contemporary situation of trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation....

The Korean version of "The Vagina Monologues" will feature acclaimed actress Jang Young-nam, and run at Doore Hall in Daehangno, Seoul, from Sept. 15 to Nov. 12. Tickets are from 20,000 to 30,000 won. Exit No. 1, Hyehwa Station on Subway Line No. 4.

Since its first run in 1997, "The Vagina Monologues," American playwright Eve Ensler's pioneering play celebrating women's empowerment and sexuality, transformed into the inspiration for V-Day, a transnational glocal (merging global with local) grassroots anti-violence movement that borrows from public awareness of Valentine's Day, shifting it to global attention on the worldwide violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery.

The "V" in V-Day stands for victory, vagina, and anti-violence, as well as valentine.

Women have now performed the monologues in over 2,000 V-Day benefit shows in 76 countries throughout the world, raising the equivalent of tens of millions of U.S. dollars for women's charities including battered women shelters, rape hot lines, and safe houses in Africa to protect women from genital mutilation.

According to the V-Day website, the movement aims to connect " the rape/murders of young women factory workers in Juarez to the dowry killings in South Asia and the battering of a girlfriend in Montreal to the sadistic rape of girls and women in Bosnia and Rwanda" and thereby to " produce sweeping changes in our ability to stop the violence."

Women's rights activists have embraced the V-Day Movement across Asia, including in the Philippines, Thailand, China, Taiwan, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and India.

In 2002, Malaysian authorities banned it after a sell-out five day run in Kuala Lumpur:

Marion D'Cruz, executive producer of Kuala Lumpur's Five Arts Centre which staged the first run, said she was disappointed that the show would not be coming back.

She said: "The play stands as an important piece of theatre, dealing with some serious issues of oppression and some things which are a little more funny.

"We do not choose to do controversial things because they are controversial. We have always done work we feel is important."

In 2005, New Voice Company, a Philippines theater company brought their production of the play to Tokyo.

This year's Garden of Hope performances in Tapei was covered by Taiwan Church News:

This year the Garden of Hope Foundation sponsored productions at the Golden Nation Theater in Sanchung City, near Taipei, on April 1 st and 2 nd . All on stage performers were Garden of Hope staff members.

Chi Huei-young, the foundation ' s executive secretary, has long participated in social justice issues. She said, “ Every aspect of the Vagina Monologues' message touches on current cases in which our foundation is involved. This is not a play, this is real human life.”

Through this production the foundation hopes to bring attention to a social movement, hoping to let everyone know that a woman ' s genital organs are not filthy, but sacred. Since human life is born through the vagina discussion of genitals is healthy.

Lin Hsu-ling is the production's director. She said that though this is the first time she has directed social workers it is not her first experience of involvement in something so vital. She notes that women ' s permission to talk privately of the vagina has been limited in the past but that in current times people can hear open discussions of sexual matters in movies and on TV. She hopes that discussions will become ever more open.

A team from the foundation re-decorated the door of the Golden Nation Theater to resemble a vagina, through which people entered and departed and the seating area as a uterus, within which they sat. The intent was to stage the entire event, all that was seen, spoken and heard, in the context of a vagina. According to the director, this was not a gimmick, but a life context.

Working with local organizations, V-Day has provided funding to help open the first shelters for women in Egypt and Iraq; sponsored annual workshops and three national campaigns in Afghanistan; and convened the "Confronting Violence" conference of South Asian women leaders. www.vday.org/contents/vday/vcampaigns/amea/india

The 2006 spotlight is on "Justice to 'Comfort Women'", the survivors of the Japanese Imperial Army's sexual enslavement of 200,000 women and girls from 1932 to 1945.

In the early 1990s, Korean survivors of wartime Japan’s military sexual slavery broke their silence and came forward nearly a half century after the Second World War, calling for justice and reparations. Survivors in China, Taiwan, North Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Timor L’Este also began to speak out, following the example of Korean survivors.
This year, Filipino women's activists performed "The Vagina Monologues" at over a dozen venues in the Philippines, including many Catholic universities. In the United States, the Filipena Women's Network produced thirty performances, in both English and Tagalog, "Usaping Puki".

V-Day is also working to raise raise awareness of the relationship between the story of the ‘comfort women’ and contemporary human trafficking.

August 2005 marks the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. However, for the 'comfort women,' civilians forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military between 1932 and 1945, there has been no escape from the war and no answer for its harm. In support of these women and their fight for an official apology and compensation from the Japanese government, V-Day has joined with organizations across East and Southeast Asia to launch the "Global V-Day Campaign for Justice to 'Comfort Women.' Given the 21st century's escalating armed conflicts, the precedent of impunity for wartime sexual violence cannot be tolerated. Furthermore, as patterns of systematic rape and sexual violence continue today in places of armed conflict such as Sudan, Congo, and Iraq, the importance of recognizing the human rights atrocity committed against women during WWII is paramount. Therefore, V-Day is proud to not only join in the 'comfort women's' crusade for reparations, but to make the campaign the V-Day spotlight for 2006.

"The Global V-Day Campaign for Justice to 'Comfort Women' launched in New York on February 28, 2005 during the landmark session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. On August 10, 2005, international groups fighting for justice to 'comfort women' organized a Global Day of Action with simultaneous demonstrations in front of Japanese embassies around the world as part of the observance of the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. Leading up to the Global Day of Action, V-Day's partners organized multi-national efforts to bring attention to the demands of the 'comfort women' including: a global petition presented to the UN by South Korean survivors; and 60 days of demonstrations and survivors' testimonies leading up to the 60th anniversary of the war's end in the Netherlands.

In the summer of 2006, the Global Campaign will include V-Day celebrity benefit performances of "The Vagina Monologues" in Seoul and Tokyo. These performances will feature the voices of 'comfort women' in a monologue written by Playwright/V-Day Founder Eve Ensler, uniting activism with performance art to open dialogue, draw international attention and support, and reverse efforts by nationalists in Japan to erase from history one of the most horrendous war crimes against women in the 20th century. The Global Campaign will also include: a street march and folk song competition featuring the survivors and national celebrities in Taiwan; photographic exhibits, film tours, and testimonial books in Japan, Philippines, and Taiwan; a campaign for 'comfort women' history in textbooks in Japan and South Korea; and the construction of museums to document the enslavement of civilians as 'comfort women' and their ongoing struggle for justice from the Japanese government in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Previous ........... Next
Back to Ten Thousand Things index page...