Australian comfort woman Jan Ruff-O'Herne

02/04/2007

Jan Ruff-O'Herne told her shocking story on Australian Story in 2001 - a secret that took her 50 years to come to terms with before finally, she revealed it in a letter to her two daughters.
An idyllic childhood in Java was brought to an abrupt end by the Japanese occupation during Word War Two. Aged 21, she was taken from her family and repeatedly abused, beaten and raped - forced to be a sex slave for the Japanese military.

The term coined for this brutal sex slavery was 'comfort woman'.

But since revealing her 'uncomfortable truth' Jan Ruff-O'Herne's suffering has been transformed into something affirmative.

In February this year, this 84-year-old Adelaide grandmother made the long journey to testify before Congress in Washington DC. The Congressional hearing was the pinnacle in her 15-year global campaign to seek justice for 'comfort women'.

Now six years since Australian Story first aired her story, Jan Ruff-O'Herne feels she is one step closer to finally achieving her ultimate goal.

See also
http://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/alliesinadversity/prisoners/women.asp
http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?docid=3b00f44114
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110hres121eh/pdf/BILLS-110hres121eh.pdf
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/200912/20091222ATT66756/20091222ATT66756EN.pdf

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