New York

Left Forum 2016 | Comfort Women: Asian Women Fight Back to Challenge History and Claim our Future

Lola Rosa Luna Henson. Lola Gertrude Balisalisa. Lola Tomosa Salinog. Lola Amonita Balajadia. Lola Anastacia Cortes. These are just some of the many names of Filipina comfort women whom survived the atrocity of military instituted sexual slavery, but also lived to fight and tell their story.

AF3IRM’s Purple Rose Campaign is one that addresses the collective history of over 500 years of colonization and imperialism and its impact on the endemic sexual violence against, the commodification and the oppression of transnational and women and girls of color. We understand that the Japanese Imperial Army’s sexual enslavement of more than 200,000 Indonesian, Korean, Filipina, Thai, and Chinese women and girls during World War II as “comfort women” is not merely a historical relic, but a reminder of the ongoing use of women and girls’ bodies as the battle ground for militarization and imperialism, with rape, trafficking, erasure and prostitution constantly emerging in times of both war and peace, across borders and oceans, but also within our own borders, homes, and lives in New York City. Presently, Asian women are most likely to be smuggled into the US for the sex trade and have the highest rate of suicide all races and ethnicities.

AF3IRM NYC is committed to fight back and put forth our own collective vision of women’s liberation by challenging the historical oppression of women and preventing the erasure of transnational women’s history and feminist activism. Join the conversation with AF3IRM NYC as we panel at: “Comfort Women: Asian Women Fight Back to Challenge History and Claim Our Future” at the Left Forum on May 21, 2016.

Left Forum 2016

LEFT FORUM CONFERENCE 2016

Comfort Women: Asian Women Fight Back to Challenge History and Claim our Future

Panel hosted by Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution

Saturday, May 21st
3:30 pm to 5:00 pm
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
324 W. 59th Street
New York, NY 10019

Panelists

  • Suzanne Jay, Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution
  • Olivia Canlas, AF3IRM NYC
  • Grace Balbutin, Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution

For more information on the conference, visit www.leftforum.org.
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1884358938457394/