A memorial to comfort women forced into slavery by members of the Japanese military during World War II now sits alongside other memorials in New Jersey’s Bergen County commemorating Holocaust survivors and African American slavery.
County Executive Kathleen Donovan said the latest memorial was a “long time coming,” reports the Teaneck Patch.
“I cannot imagine the agony and the suffering that those women went through in the years of World War Two, but the dignity and grace of them now would astonish all of us,” said Donovan during this weekend’s dedication ceremony.
Korean American Civic Empowerment organized the campaign for the Comfort Women memorial. Most comfort women were from Korea.
“By having the memorial at this location, the Bergen County government is officially recognizing the Comfort Women issue as the same kind of international human rights violation as the other four human rights abuses remembered by Bergen County in front of the Bergen County Courthouse,” said Dongchan Kim, president of the group.
You can read more in the Teaneck Patch.
