VAWW-NET Japan - Women's Museum


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What's the Tribunal 2000?

What's Sexual Slavery?

Women's Museum for War and Peace
-Women remember and record past war, and create future peace-

Toward a Future of Peace and Non-Violence
We will create records of the wars of the past,
aim for the prevention and solution of present conflict,
create a future of peace and non-violence,
and promote and support women's activities

Our dear friend, Yayori Matsui passed away on December 27, 2002, at age 68.
She was a prominent journalist. She was a hard-core human rights activist and a chairperson of VAWW-NET Japan, Asia-Japan Women's Resource Center. She worked very hard as one of the leading figure to give success to the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery. She even recalled that she gave her life to the Tribunal.
Yayori collapsed during her research in Afghanistan in summer 2002, and found out that she had a fatal lever cancer. When she was struggling with pain, the idea of "Women's Museum for War and Peace" flashed into her mind. The museum which has comprehensive information on violence against women in war situations in past and present, and which will be the hub of the women's network for making peace in the world.
Following are her ideas of the Museum she left as a last will. Our hope is to realize the Museum through network of women all over the world. We are looking forward to your cooperation.

My Proposal
Five Principles:
What the Museum do?
We Need Your Help

My Proposal Matsui Yayori

War and violence continue to rage, conflicts are spreading on global scale, and regional wars still break out frequently in every corner of the world. To protect the human rights of women, exterminate violence and build peace, it is an urgent task to record and remember the facts of women's suffering during wartime and offenses carried out by military forces in the 20th century. We must hand this knowledge down to future generations and put it to practical use for peace building. For the purpose of recording Japan's past wars, aiming for the prevention and solution of present armed conflicts, and accelerating and supporting women's activities for peace and non-violence, we will build the Women's Museum for War and Peace.
During the four years of the preparation process for the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal held in December 2000, enormous numbers of documents were collected. These valuable documents had been accumulated through the many lawsuits filed by former "comfort women" starting in 1991. To collect all these documents, photographs, and videos on the "comfort women" within and outside Japan is very important, not only to preserve the historical documents but also for the education of future generation.
This Museum will also store documents concerned with violence against women in armed conflicts all over the world. The Museum will encourage women's activities for the creation of peace.
The construction of this Women's Museum carries on the spirit of the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal, with the aim of turning the dream into reality, as a pure people's movement. This is a movement of citizens, not of states, and women will play a central role together with men. The activities will be oriented toward the future, with a recognition of the past, through global solidarity transcending national borders. I ask you from bottom of my heart to join us in building the Women's Museum for War and Peace.

Five Principles:
1. Focus on sexual violence during wartime, from the point of view of gender justice.
2. Clarify not only victims but also the responsibility for crimes.
3. Not only preserve and exhibit the past and future but also create a base for future activities.
4. Build and operate Museum as people's activity unrelated to state authority.
5. Transmit information outside of Japan and promote borderless solidarity.

What the Museum do?
Memory and Records of Japanese Military Sex Slavery
The Women's Museum of War and Peace will collect and sort all the documents on the "comfort women" being accumulated for Women's International War Crimes Tribunal, such as investigations of victims in countries throughout Asia, documents concerning the Emperor and Japanese Army, documents of civil suits of "comfort Women" victims in various countries, published books, reports, articles, and documents from support organization in various countries, photographs, and videos. People will be able to access the documents and read them. We will also prepare a system to allow people to view our video archives, to listen to and watch videos or recorded taped testimonies of victims who spoke out. The video archives will include videotaped testimony by Japanese soldiers on their own crimes, videos of buildings or places where "comfort station" existed, and testimony by local people. We are preparing a retrieval system to allow access, through the Internet, to all these video archives of oral history.
Toward a Future of Peace and Non-Violence
The Museum will have an open space for small gatherings, and a mini-theatre and exhibition for people who want to create peace. It will become a base of women to take an active part in peace education, prevention and solution of conflicts, cooperating for rehabilitation, and research. The Museum will also promote women's peace-making activity such as dispatching investigation teams or lobbying activities at the United Nations. There will be a Matsui Yayori Library. Matsui Yayori took leadership and made great efforts to realize the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal. Matsui Yayori Library will be a collection of all her works. Visitors will be able to access all her books, writings in newspapers, columns, articles for magazines and newsletters.

Present Violence Against Women in War and Armed Conflicts.
The Museum will collect all the testimony of investigations of victims of sexual violence caused by wars, conflicts and military forces, such as the International Public Hearings in December 2000. It will include the testimony of women victims who have suffered under armed conflict in many countries around the world, testimony of women working on the military bases issues in Korea and Okinawa, the situation of victims in Afghanistan and
Palestine, international Conferences, documents of solidarity activities. These documents and video documents will be open to the public. We will receive through the Internet messages related to NGOs, anti-war activities, peace education, reconstruction activities, and information (including video information) from citizens all over the world, and will send out this information and messages. This cooperation with many groups abroad and independent media, and this exchange of information, will become a form of transborder cooperative activity.

We Need Your Help
For Hundred million-yen campaign for building Women's Museum
The (Tentative) Preparatory Committee for The Women's Museum for War and Peace has started activities to collect funds and materials and create the system we envisage. To succeed in the huge project to build the museum in three years, we need a large amount of money and your cooperation. We hope that you will join us to help the one hundred million-yen campaign. Support organizations for "comfort women" inside and outside of Japan, researchers, journalists, and volunteers, please lend us your strength to collect materials and sorting them and build up our archives.
We also ask people who experienced war or bereaved families to deposit or donate materials, photographs, diaries and so on. In addition to the hundred million-yen campaign, we are also hoping to receive donations of land. Please support us in building the Women's Museum and realizing our dream.

For more information
Preliminary committee for the Women's Museum for War and Peace
Tel/Fax +81-3-3369-6866 email: kikin@peace.emai.ne.jp