“Justice for the survivors of Japan’s wartime system of military sexual slavery”

Chinese Version | Korean Version

Toronto Association for Learning and Preserving the History of World War II in Asia (Toronto ALPHA) held a press conference to recognize the Youth Ambassadors who recently spoke at the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) parallel event “Justice for the survivors of Japan’s wartime system of military sexual slavery.”  The event, which was held on September 11, 2013, in Geneva, Switzerland, was led and organized by Amnesty International and the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Korean Council).

The program at the UN HRC included a testimony from survivor Bok-Dong Kim from South Korea, a trailer screening of Within Every Woman; a riveting Canadian documentary which explores the complex layers of shame and healing through the lives of three survivors which Toronto ALPHA has supported and partnered in during its production, as well as featured youth voices, Haruho Kubota and Jungyeon Heo, to represent Toronto ALPHA and bring awareness to educating our world’s young people on this human rights issue.

A press conference was held on September 16, 2013 to report the event by the followings:

Dr. Joseph Wong, Founder and Chair of Toronto ALPHA started the event by providing a warm welcome to those in attendance. He further went on to explain not only the importance of this event at the United Nations and the role that Toronto ALPHA and its sister organizations plays but also the importance of education and how it is “crucial to bring this history to classrooms to educate the young people of this aspect of history.”

Jungyeon Jennie Heo, a Master of Education student at the University of Toronto and Toronto ALPHA’s Youth Ambassador, spoke at the United Nation’s event this past Wednesday. During the press conference she mentioned three things she learned from this experience, “[I] learned in the process of achieving a peaceful justice, we have to appreciate every single step; the power of education as a crucial strategy in bringing justice and; how youth could become a very powerful voice.”

Tiffany Hsiung, award winning Toronto based film-maker now finalizing her new documentary, “Within Every Woman” stated that the “continuous dialogue regarding the injustice that these women faced is incredibly essential to the work that we’ve been doing. With this film we hope it plants a crucial seed for the younger generation to not only learn about the truth, but to also build strength and knowledge from these grandmothers.”

Haruho Kubota, a fourth year undergraduate student at Mount Allison University, is a Japanese woman who has grown up in the United States and in Japan, before coming to Canada for her undergraduate education. This past summer she interned at Toronto ALPHA coordinating a book project for a Japanese researcher. Through her work with Toronto ALPHA as an intern and now as a Youth Ambassador, she feels that “military sexual slavery is a tragic effect of war that is relatable to every human being and that life experiences as survivors of war have to be exchanged so that we can all learn the lessons that should have been taught long ago.”

Toronto ALPHA has joined in partnership with the following organizations to bring you more events in coming October: New College at the University of Toronto, Community Alliance for Social Justice, Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Canada ALPHA Educational Fund.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please call 416-299-0111 or

Email:  info@torontoalpha.org