What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to explore how societal norms and state interests contributed to the forgetting of the Filipina comfort women's memory before the 1990s.

June 11, 2026Open Access

Forgetting and Remembering: The Conflict Over the Collective Memory of the Filipina “Comfort Women” of the Asia-Pacific War

Key Points

The aim is to explore how societal norms and state interests contributed to the forgetting of the Filipina comfort women's memory before the 1990s.
Analyzed historical narratives and social norms affecting the collective memory
Focused on the shifts in memory and mobilization leading to the redress movement
Discussed the impact of democratic changes in Asia on collective memory
Identified key factors that led to the initial silencing of the comfort women's memory
Highlighted the role of changing societal attitudes toward sexual slavery in remembering this history
Documented the emergence of the redress movement which challenged official narratives

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the forgetting of the collective memory of the Filipina “comfort women” prior to the 1990s transnational redress movement. It argues that the prevailing social norms around prostitution, postwar narratives of heroism versus collaboration, and the interests of state and elite actors contributed to the initial silencing of this memory. However, shifts in societal norms towards sexual slavery and the return of democratic spaces in Asia enabled the later remembering and eventual mobilization of the “comfort women” memory which facilitated the emergence of the redress movement in the Philippines, challenging the state’s homogenized official memory of the Asia-Pacific War.

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