Remembering The Comfort Women, Victims Of Human Trafficking And Slavery

 By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

To its credit, PBS aired an extraordinary film entitled “The Apology,” which followed “three former ‘comfort women’ who were among the 200,000 girls and young women kidnapped and forced into military sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Seventy years after their imprisonment, the survivors [gave] their first-hand accounts of the truth for the record, seeking apology and the hope that this horrific chapter of history [will] not be forgotten.”[2]

I have written about such comfort women or sexual slaves[3], and about human trafficking[4], and about the victims of Joseph Stalin’s and Mao Tse-tung’s holocausts[5] and other holocausts in history.[6]  The last victims will be gone soon; and what they lived through may die with them unless steps are taken now to insure that they did not die in vain.  The #MeToo and similar movements worldwide[7] should honor these women; and act to protect those who are victims of slavery and human trafficking now, such as the brave women of Afghanistan and those who have fled unspeakable violence in the Middle East.[8]

In 2009, I wrote about human trafficking:

Lots of Americans may not know that human trafficking exists in the Twenty-First Century, much less in their hometowns and where they work. . . .

Years ago I read an article about a Korean girl who began as a “comfort woman” for the Japanese military during World War II.  She and other women traveled with the military, and were forced to provide non-stop sex to Japanese soldiers.  Toward the end of the war, somehow she escaped and made her way back to Korea where her family disowned her because of the shame that she had caused them.  She married, to an abusive husband, and finally left that marriage and found happiness with another Korean man.

Also, I read an article about a woman in the former Yugoslavia who was caught up in the fighting there, and lost both her husband and son, and ended up in a refugee camp.  There, she and other women were told about opportunities to become secretaries across the Adriatic in Bari, Italy where I have been years ago.  When she arrived, she and the other women were forced into prostitution.  Only when the Italian police raided the house where she was enslaved did she escape.

There are approximately 50,000 human slaves in the U.S., and more than a million worldwide.  It is so tragic, yet little or nothing is being done about it. . . .

Every year we read about lots of cases here in the U.S., where children are kidnapped and never found again.  Clearly, the case of Jaycee Lee Dugard, an 11-year-old girl who was kidnapped from South Lake Tahoe in 1991, and who was found alive recently, riveted national attention.  She was kept as a sex slave; however, her story is not unique.  There are lots of women like her in the United States and elsewhere in the world today.  Men are victims as well. . . .

Too often when we hear of such stories, we think that it could never touch our lives or the lives of our loved ones or friends.  Tragically, that is what Jaycee Lee Dugard’s family thought; and the same was true of the family of Elizabeth Smart whose kidnapping occurred on June 5, 2002, when she was abducted from her Salt Lake City, Utah bedroom at the age of 14.  She was found nine months later, after having been held as a sex slave too.[9]

Since I wrote those words, the numbers have increased both in the United States and globally.

In 2010, I wrote about Stalin’s and Mao’s holocausts:

Aside from ordering the killing of those in the Soviet hierarchy, it is estimated that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of more than 30 million men, women and children—his own countrymen—including millions during the collectivization of the Soviet farms in the 1930s.

. . .

[A]s the Soviets moved through Germany, they raped at least two million German women in what is now acknowledged as the largest case of mass rape in history.

. . .

China’s Mao Tse-tung was directly responsible for an estimated 30-40 million deaths between 1958 and 1960, as a result of what Mao’s regime hailed as the “Great Leap Forward.”  Like Stalin, Mao’s crimes involved Chinese peasants, many of whom died of hunger from man-made famines under collectivist orders that stripped them of all private possessions.  The Communist Party forbade them even to cook food at home; private fires were outlawed; and their harvests were taken by the state.  Those who dared to question Mao’s agricultural policies—which sought to maximize food output by dispossessing the nation’s most productive farmers—were tortured, sent to labor camps, or executed.

More than 60 million human beings are forgotten, seemingly having disappeared without a trace in the Soviet and Chinese Holocausts of the 20th Century, as if they never existed or were swallowed up by history.  Yet they did exist, and they might have produced descendants numbering in the hundreds of millions today.  One can only conjecture as to the contributions they would have made to mankind, which are forever lost like the contributions of those Jews, Gypsies and others who were killed in the Nazi Holocaust, and by Japan, and by Pol Pot, and in Africa.[10]

Sexual predators of all kinds and degrees—such as Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby—must be pursued for the rest of their lives, nonstop, without ceasing.[11]  More must be done to end human trafficking and slavery, and the actions of sexual predators.  Nothing less will suffice.

 

 

© 2018, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and Timothy D. Naegele Resume). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]   See http://www.pbs.org/pov/theapology/video-theapology/; see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/#comment-6922 (“Japanese Sadism, Amnesia And Denial, But No Contrition”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/#comment-2174 (“Shame On Japan”) and http://thevillager.com/2017/10/25/comfort-women-statue-remembers-victims-of-sexual-slavery/ (“‘Comfort Women’ statue remembers victims of sexual slavery”)

“The Apology” may be watched online in its entirety.  See http://www.pbs.org/pov/theapology/video-theapology/

Watching the film today is a sobering experience, as the survivors are condemned and cursed in Japan as “prostitutes,” “dirty old bitches,” “Korean whores,” “society outcasts” and the like.

Three of the women shown in the film are Gil Won Ok, or simply “Grandma Gil” from Korea; “Grandma Cao” from China; and “Grandma Adela” from the Philippines.  The latter’s photo is used with this article—and she is dead now.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Korean_Council_for_the_Women_Drafted_for_Military_Sexual_Slavery_by_Japan (“The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan”)

[3]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/#comment-7778 (“The Tragic Story of Comfort Women“)

[4]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/ (“Human Trafficking”)

[5]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/the-silent-voices-of-stalin’s-soviet-holocaust-and-mao’s-chinese-holocaust/ (“The Silent Voices Of Stalin’s Soviet Holocaust And Mao’s Chinese Holocaust”)

[6]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/31/is-israel-doomed/#comment-8618 (“The Nazi Holocaust Remembered”)

A very important film to watch in its entirety is Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah.”

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoah_(film) (“Shoah (film)”)

[7]  See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement (“Me Too movement”)

[8]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/#comment-8632 (“The Fate Of Lina Zinab: Is Life Fair?”)

[9]  See infra n.4.  The world must never forget about the UK’s Madeleine (or “Maddie”) McCann either, who disappeared in Spain.

See, e.g., https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6153495/Hunt-Madeleine-McCann-shelved-THREE-WEEKS-fear-missing-girls-parents.html (“Hunt for Madeleine McCann could be shelved within THREE WEEKS fear the missing girl’s parents”)

[10]  See infra n.5.

[11]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/americas-newest-civil-war-2017-and-beyond/#comment-12196 (“THE VERY ESSENCE OF HOLLYWOOD’S DEPRAVITY”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-11474 (“SICKO SEXUAL PREDATOR ROMAN POLANSKI IS TARGETED FINALLY!”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-13133 (“Finally, The Beginning Of Justice For Hollywood’s Serial Rapist, Bill Cosby”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-11735 (“HOLLYWOOD’S SICKNESS CONTINUES UNABATED: BOYCOTT ITS FILMS!”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-11585 (“BOYCOTT HOLLYWOOD AND ITS FILMS!”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/is-google-becoming-microsoft-or-worse/#comment-14975 (“Has Amazon Joined The Ranks Of Google And Facebook In Despicable Leftist Censorship?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/ (“Washington Is Sick And The American People Know It“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/john-f-kennedy-the-most-despicable-president-in-american-history/ (“John F. Kennedy: The Most Despicable President In American History“) (see also the extensive comments beneath the article) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/john-f-kennedy-the-most-despicable-president-in-american-history/#comment-12868 (“The Kennedy Brothers Killed Mary Jo Kopechne”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/#comment-2830 (“The Truth About Martin Luther King, Jr. Emerges . . . Finally“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-7185 (“Clinton Fatigue”)

Abortions And Autos Kill More In America Than Guns

 By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Tragedies have struck again and again, with women and young students being killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut; at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado; and elsewhere.  The loss of these lives was senseless and unfathomable; and enormous pain and shock waves have been visited upon our great nation.  Advocates of gun control believe it is the solution.  However, the killer at Sandy Hook used his mother’s weapons; and she apparently knew that his mental health issues were a potential powder keg, but she could not stop him and he killed her too.  Also, at essentially the same time as the Sandy Hook killings, 22 children and one adult were injured by a knife-wielding man outside a primary school in central China as students were arriving for classes.[2]

Guns do not kill; people do. Criminals and wackos can get their hands on guns and other weapons and commit violence, and there is nothing that can be done to prevent them—except to stop the crimes before they are committed, owing to mental health treatment, better intelligence and law enforcement.  These are violent times, which will only get much worse between now and the end of this decade; and lots of innocent people will suffer globally.[3]  However, such killings must be placed in perspective: abortions and auto accidents kill far more in America than guns do.  Indeed, there is no comparison.  Also, the FBI has reported that all homicides committed using firearms have been declining.[4]

The Second Amendment to our Constitution states in pertinent part:

[T]he right of the people to keep and bear arms [] shall not be infringed.[5]

It is part of the American culture, which is protected; and the Constitution will not be changed in this regard.  Indeed, gun sales have been rising because Americans want the ability to defend themselves as crime increases in our country, which will only get worse as the budgets of law enforcement decline during the balance of this decade.

Also, violence is glorified on TV and in films worldwide.  If Americans truly want to reduce or eliminate violence (e.g., “copycat” murders), the depiction of violence should be banned. It instills the wrong values in the kids of this world. And there is no question that Hollywood promotes and glorifies violence.

America’s resident, angry Narcissistic Brit, Piers Morgan, has been trying to change our culture—which he does not understand—by crusading for gun control, despite the low ratings of his CNN talk show, which replaced the legendary, unflappable Larry King.  Hopefully Morgan returns permanently to the UK as soon as possible, and stops “preaching” in our country.[6]

As American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator Ann Coulter has noted:

Only one public policy has ever been shown to reduce the death rate from [multiple-victim shootings]: concealed-carry laws.

The effect of concealed-carry laws in deterring mass public shootings was even greater than the impact of such laws on the murder rate generally.

Someone planning to commit a single murder in a concealed-carry state only has to weigh the odds of one person being armed. But a criminal planning to commit murder in a public place has to worry that anyone in the entire area might have a gun.[7]

On a personal note, I was a U.S. Army Infantry Officer during the Vietnam War, and I was trained with guns and know how to use them.  However, I gave away my father’s duck-hunting weapons, and do not like the idea of any weapons being around.  Accidents can and do happen.  However, I understand why so many Americans want them for hunting, and for their own protection.

Lastly, it bears repeating: abortions and auto accidents kill far more than guns do in the United States.  Abortions should be banned, and auto accidents should be curbed, if Americans and others truly want to deal with deaths instead of merely spouting rhetoric as Piers Morgan does.

© 2012, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass).  He practices law in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles with his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, which specializes in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and http://www.naegele.com/naegele_resume.html).  He has an undergraduate degree in economics from UCLA, as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University.  He is a member of the District of Columbia and California bars.  He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal.  Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g.,www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com; see also Google search:Timothy D. Naegele

[2] See http://www.enniscorthyguardian.ie/breaking-news/world-news/22-children-hurt-in-knife-attack-3325857.html

[3] Whether it is (1) Elizabeth Smart who was abducted from her Salt Lake City, Utah, bedroom, or (2) Jaycee Lee Dugard who was kidnapped in Northern California at the age of 11 and was found alive 18 years later after having given birth to two children fathered by the man who kidnapped her, or (3) sweet Madeleine McCann who disappeared in May of 2007 when she was on holiday with her British parents and twin siblings in the Algarve region of Portugal, or (4) the attack that took place at the shopping center in Southern California where I bought an Apple laptop that I am using to type this—which is across the road from where my son and his family used to live—this is a violent world in which innocent people (especially women) are preyed on by wackos.

See, e.g., http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/12/shots-fired-at-fashion-island-mall-lockdown-in-place.html; see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/poverty-in-america/ (“Poverty In America”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-economic-tsunami-continues-its-relentless-and-unforgiving-advance-globally/ (“The Economic Tsunami Continues Its Relentless And Unforgiving Advance Globally”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/illegal-immigration-the-solution-is-simple/ (“Illegal Immigration: The Solution Is Simple”)

[4]  As of the date that this article was published, more than 1.2 million abortions had taken place in the United States this year alone.

See http://www.numberofabortions.com/; see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States

Last year, motor vehicle deaths in U.S. totaled 32,367.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

By comparison, it has been reported:

[T]he most recent data suggests gun violence is declining in the United States.

The number of homicides committed using firearms dropped from 2006 to 2010, according the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report.

In 2010, 8,775 homicides using firearms were reported to the FBI. In 2006, 10,225 homicides using firearms were reported to the FBI.

See http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/fbi-crime-reports-show-homicides-using-firearms-dropped-in-usbetween-2006-and-2010

[5] See http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/second_amendment

[6] See http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/12/19/piers-morgan-calls-pro-gun-advocate-unbelievably-stupid-dangerous-you

[7] See http://www.humanevents.com/2012/12/19/ann-coulter-we-know-how-to-stop-school-shootings/

As a lawyer-friend of mine commented, after reading and recommending Coulter’s article:

I think one of the jurisdictions that is pretty satisfied with concealed carry laws is [the District of Columbia, or Washington, D.C.], where a lot of the minority women carry weapons when they live in unsafe areas.

. . .

The bad guys aren’t as likely to bother them as they were before many of them started carrying.

Human Trafficking

By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Lots of Americans may not know that human trafficking exists in the Twenty-First Century, much less in their hometowns and where they work.  The Kansas City Star has a fine article on the subject entitled, “U.S. system to find, help victims of trafficking is broken,” which everyone should read.  It is an eye-opener; however, it merely touches on one of the greatest tragedies in the world today, which must be dealt with and eradicated.

In comments following the article, I wrote:

This is a terrific article; and its authors, Mike McGraw and Laura Bauer, are to be congratulated on such fine reporting.  Seldom have I seen an excellent piece of investigative reporting about this subject of such importance.

Years ago I read an article about a Korean girl who began as a “comfort woman” for the Japanese military during World War II.  She and other women traveled with the military, and were forced to provide non-stop sex to Japanese soldiers.  Toward the end of the war, somehow she escaped and made her way back to Korea where her family disowned her because of the shame that she had caused them.  She married, to an abusive husband, and finally left that marriage and found happiness with another Korean man.

Also, I read an article about a woman in the former Yugoslavia who was caught up in the fighting there, and lost both her husband and son, and ended up in a refugee camp.  There, she and other women were told about opportunities to become secretaries across the Adriatic in Bari, Italy where I have been years ago.  When she arrived, she and the other women were forced into prostitution.  Only when the Italian police raided the house where she was enslaved did she escape.

There are approximately 50,000 human slaves in the U.S., and more than a million worldwide.  It is so tragic, yet little or nothing is being done about it, which is why this article is so important.

I brought the issue to the attention of someone who is very close to President Obama’s two top campaign chiefs, and never heard back from him on the subject.

I include my comments here, not because they contain great wisdom, but because it is the easiest means of highlighting an issue of enormous importance.  Every year we read about lots of cases here in the U.S., where children are kidnapped and never found again.  Clearly, the case of Jaycee Lee Dugard, an 11-year-old girl who was kidnapped from South Lake Tahoe in 1991, and who was found alive recently, riveted national attention.  She was kept as a sex slave[2]; however, her story is not unique.  There are lots of women like her in the United States and elsewhere in the world today.  Men are victims as well, as Mike McGraw and Laura Bauer have discussed in their article.

Too often when we hear of such stories, we think that it could never touch our lives or the lives of our loved ones or friends.  Tragically, that is what Jaycee Lee Dugard’s family thought; and the same was true of the family of Elizabeth Smart whose kidnapping occurred on June 5, 2002, when she was abducted from her Salt Lake City, Utah bedroom at the age of 14.  She was found nine months later, after having been held as a sex slave too.[3]

While there are issues galore facing Americans today (e.g., the economy, national security, wars), human trafficking cannot be one that is shunted aside and forgotten.  It is too important.

© 2009, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1] Mr. Naegele was counsel to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass), the first black senator since Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War.  He practices law in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles with his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates (www.naegele.com).  He has an undergraduate degree in economics from UCLA, as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University.  He is a member of the District of Columbia and California bars.  He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal.  Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years.  See, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles

[2] See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Jaycee_Lee_Dugard

[3] See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Smart