In Philadelphia, US, 'Ramseyer Condemnation' Resolution Adopted for the First Time... "Rude Historical Revisionism"

"Extremely Inaccurate and Insulting to Victimized Women"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Ji-hee] A resolution condemning Harvard Law School Professor Mark Ramseyer's 'comfort women paper' was adopted for the first time in Philadelphia, USA. Since this resolution directly targets Professor Ramseyer's historical distortion rather than a general discussion on the comfort women issue, attention is focused on the impact it may have on the current situation.

According to the Philadelphia City Council on the 5th (local time), a resolution opposing Professor Ramseyer's paper, proposed by Korean-American Councilman David Oh on the 25th of last month, was passed the day before. The resolution states, “It refutes Professor Ramseyer's paper ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War,’ which contradicts historical consensus and the historical evidence of thousands of women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military,” and defines it as “extremely inaccurate and insulting to thousands of victims.”

It also points out that “Ramseyer's paper is a rude rewriting of history that degrades the severe injustice and suffering inflicted on these women to a contractual prostitution relationship.”

The resolution defines the comfort women issue as “a horrific human trafficking system forcibly mobilizing women from Korea and other Asian countries,” and mentions that, unlike the previous Kono Statement, the Abe Shinzo administration engaged in historical revisionism.

The resolution emphasizes, “Victims of wartime atrocities deserve their experiences to be accurately told and dangerous historical revisionism must be condemned,” and “on behalf of survivors and women worldwide, we continue to oppose dangerous attempts to minimize historical atrocities and ensure such events never happen again.”

The Philadelphia City Council swiftly passed this resolution about a month after Professor Ramseyer's paper became publicly known through Japanese media reports on the 1st of last month. Although not at the federal or state legislative level, the fact that the sixth largest city in the U.S. publicly condemned Professor Ramseyer's paper by name is considered significant.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.